Toast
“Celestia,” said Twilight, very carefully, “Why don’t you date?”
Celestia peered over the top of her teacup, eyebrows arching. “I’m sorry?”
Twilight flushed, her smooth complexion turning an ugly shade of puce. With her ministers, with her supplicants, her courtiers, she was a princess in every way. Regal and composed. As tall as Celestia herself, not a hair in her magical mane out of place. Utterly unruffled. But with one look Celestia could send her back to the stammering filly she had once been.
“I just…” She paused, pulled in a deep breath, mastered herself. When she spoke again, it was calm and deliberate. “I wanted to know why you never had a partner. A consort.”
Celestia raised a delicate hoof to her mouth to hide a small smile. “What brings on this question?”
“I…just wanted to know, that’s all.”
That enigmatic smile widening, Celestia took a sip of her tea, so slowly it was almost performative. Levitated the teacup back into its saucer with care.
Twilight shifted in her seat. Celestia appeared to be deep in thought, and Twilight readied herself to receive whatever mystical royal secret her mentor was about to impart. We must think of the many, Twilight, not the few.
“Now, I wouldn’t tell this to just anypony,” Celestia said at length. “But I think I owe you the truth, my faithful student.”
Her spine straightening, Twilight readied herself. Celestia was going to share a secret. Something nopony but she and Twilight would know. It was a heady brew, that feeling — the exact same as when she was a scrawny six-year-old, invited to become personal student to the Princess.
“I,” and here Celestia paused dramatically, her eyes glinting wickedly beneath the floating rainbow haze of her mane, “Had loads.”
“What?” squeaked Twilight, the word slipping out before she could modulate it.
Celestia bit off a large corner of the toasted bread she held in her magic. It crunched loudly as she chewed.
“Dozens of them,” she said casually. “Every year. The guard used to escort them in through a tunnel to my bedroom, and take them away again in the morning. You wouldn’t believe how many small businesses in Canterlot got their seed funding from my hush money.”
“What?” repeated Twilight.
Celestia took another bite. Her pink tongue flicked out to lick the butter from her lips in a very un-Celestia-like way. “Really, Twilight, where did you think Blueblood came from?”
“I…I…” Twilight had never given the matter much thought. Blueblood had simply always been there, an annoying and unscientific boor to be avoided at all costs.
“He’s my great-grandson,” Celestia explained. “Give or take a generation or three. Having foals isn’t common for alicorns, but I had a daughter a couple of centuries ago.”
Twilight felt like her world was teetering on its foundations. She had thought she was the closest Celestia had come to motherhood. “But…”
It didn’t make sense. Centuries of Equestrian art and culture were built upon their untouchable, gloriously remote princess. As far removed from the common pony as the sun she commanded. Surely somepony would have noticed dozens of ponies trooping into the castle and emerging with bags of gold.
“But what? I prefer to avoid having my love affairs blandished about in the tabloids, but heavens, Twilight, I’m still a mare. I have urges like everypony else.”
“Urges?” What urges? The only urges Twilight had were to improve access to early childhood education and rebalance the national economy through reducing inflation. Proper, princess-like urges.
Celestia’s gaze softened, and she floated her half-eaten toast away to rest her hoof atop Twilight’s. “The sort that you don’t get, but most ponies do.”
“Oh.” Like Applejack and Rainbow Dash. Too many Council of Friendship meetings had been interrupted for Twilight to be entirely unaware of that sphere of things. She had simply assumed that alicorns were immune, but then a couple of days ago she had sent a first-edition spellbook by Merlinius the Wise to the Crystal Empire for Flurry’s birthday, and she had gotten to thinking. After all, Cadence couldn’t be immune, or Twilight would have no niece and no need to give away her prized Merlinius scrolls. Returning to the present, she focused in on the first part of Celestia’s sentence. “What do you mean, I don’t get them?”
“Twilight, my dear, the fact that you’re forty-seven years old and this is the first time you’ve thought to ask yourself the question of whether you’re interested in romance ought to suggest something, don’t you think?”
Twilight looked down at her shining gold horseshoes. Shuffled them like a sheepish twelve-year-old caught transforming the palace peacocks into mice just to practice, Princess, I swear! I turned them right back!
“Maybe,” she muttered.
“There’s nothing to worry about, Twilight,” Celestia promised her. “Really. Cadence will be the first to tell you that love comes in many forms. It’s different for every pony. You just happen to favour the friendship form of love more than the others.”
“But if even you had lovers…” Twilight tailed off. For decades she had rested secure in the knowledge that this was just one more way in which she was exactly like her idol. To find out that assumption had been false was an almost physical pain.
“Had?” said Celestia sharply. “Twilight Sparkle, I am retired, not dead.”
Twilight was still staring at her hooves. “Is it me? Am I…wrong?”
Celestia’s hoof tightened on hers. “No, Twilight! Faust, no. You’re like…” she cast about herself for inspiration, and then brandished the toast again. “You’re like toast. I mean, bread. Not every piece of bread becomes toast, though many do. Do you see?”
“No,” said Twilight, helplessly. “Why am I bread?”
“You’re bread because…” Celestia’s magic flashed and a fresh loaf of bread materialised from the ether. Celestia lit her horn again in a spell Twilight recognised as the sun-fire incantation. The first slice of the loaf began to crisp. “We’re going to need to start at the beginning.”
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And this story is when? Love everything else too.
Adore this! Ace Twilight is great!
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After the show ends; you can tell bc Twi is talking about courtiers and embassies and Celestia says she's retired
nice story! I wonder what Celestia is going to teach Twilight though...
I gotta say, when I saw there was no romance tag on this story I was very curious just where this fic would find itself by the end, and I could not be happier with the result. Twilight realizing she's ace at almost 50 years old simply because she had never put much thought into it before seems a little too accurate to the character...
Oh Twi, I wish I could give you a hug. Very well done in such a short spate of time. Bravo.
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I know when this story is set. This quote just seemed oddly specific
Did… Did Celestia fucking reset Twilight by igniting her? Like a phoenix?
If Twi's ace, that's a rough revelation for a 47 year old mare. Nice little bite, but the toast analogy probably isn't going to sit well with Twilight
Hurray, ace rep in fan fiction! You'd think I'd do that more myself, but I write so much romance, ironically...
The playing cards in Equestria have suits of Sun, Moon, Love, and Friendship. And, well, we now know who's one of the Aces.
Holy shit twilight being asexual makes so much sense WOW good story
I like Twilights confusion here. Its very sweet as she slowly realises she's acee, even if she's afraid of being different/spoiler]
Brilliantly written and brilliantly conceived. My only complaint is that you didn’t write this last month. Best of luck in the contest, fellow competitor! (You won’t need it.)
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS
AROACE TWI AROACE TWI
Seeing fics like this always brings me joy. They remind me of my own time finding out that asexuality exists
Got a bit of confusion here, but it was nice for a smile at night at work~
And Celestia being like that? Color me impressed…
I like that it can be read as Celestia just messing with Twilight, because c'mon, she would totally do that. Twilight is fun to mess with
Isn't the whole point of this fic that Twilight isn't bread?
So thanks for that.
good thing she doesn't have the urges, cant have someone seducing her and screwing over the country or die and leave her pining for eternity
I've been thinking about doing an asexual twilight story, never been happier to be beaten to the punch. 10/10. Wonderful writing.
First let me say that this is a very good story. It has a strong voice and does a lot in a thousand words. However, I think it's not as good as it could be.
The exact moment when I think this story begins to falter is "She had simply assumed that alicorns were immune." I think there is a sudden drop in quality right there.
Prior to that sentence, the story's focus has been on Twilight's initial question: "Why don't you [Celestia] date?" Celestia has established that she has lovers, and Twilight is shocked. Twilight thinks, "It didn't make sense," and has many questions. At this point in the story, I was expecting a humorous twist ending that makes unexpected sense of Celestia's revelation. Something like: Celestia has a secret force of commandos that storm the homes and businesses of ordinary people to destroy evidence of her affairs. Or: Celestia has put mind control spells on half of Canterlot so that they don't talk, and Twilight realizes that she, too, has been under mind control. Something like that.
But starting from, "She had simply assumed that alicorns were immune," Twilight doesn't try to answer her questions. At this moment in the story, she abandons all her questions about Celestia's lovers:
Dissected, these paragraphs read like:
Celestia, in a stunning feat of conversational judo, has redirected the conversation to Twilight being aro/ace. Her lovers are mentioned one more time and only to emphasize that Twilight is aro/ace:
This could be followed up in numerous ways:
But in the story, Twilight simply drops the subject again:
It's completely in-character for Twilight to doubt herself, and it's completely realistic for conversations to get derailed. But the derailment in this story is swift and entire, and it means the story never really comes to an end. Imagine that we skip ahead in time:
Where does this leave the story? Well, Twilight now understands that she's aro/ace. Progress. But we still haven't resolved, "It doesn't make sense." Celestia might have nothing more to say, since she's already explained about the tunnel and the bags of gold and her foals. (One wonders how inbred the nobility is.) What's unresolved is Twilight's reaction. And she could react in lots of ways:
None of these are complete endings, but they do start to resolve Twilight's feelings about Celestia's lovers.
So I feel like the story is incomplete as it stands. Despite that it's a good story. I just think it could be better.
(Sorry about how long this comment got to be!)
aww so true. also i bet it’s a lovely shade of puce
nice
so true actually, best not to think of his origins. also absolutely love that of all the adjectives one could use to insult him, Twilight chooses “unscientific”
aww Twily thought she was so special!
so true bestie
aww aroace Twilight!
truly, the Princess of Friendship!
ehehe
love this trying to make an illustrative metaphor out of whatever food is lying around. very Celestia, i feel.
absolutely delightful and valid take on Twilight and Celestia’s respective love lives. excellent work, thank you so much for writing!
Yeah, this is definitely a conversation that Celestia should send Cadence’s way. At the very least, it’ll give her time to come up with a better analogy.
Delightful golden-brown slice of life. Thank you for it.
I love it!
I think I've read my fair amount of shipping, but ace Twi is also a lot of fun to see. Now that I think about it, I don't think I see very much of it.
Really nice work, this was a lot of fun to read. I think I'm going to go dig in the archives some now.
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This was great - you have great comedic delivery and I love the voices you did for Twilight and Celestia. Thank you so much!
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Wasn't me, but thanks