Crystal White

by Lovinlife

Book 1: Chapter 2: Broken Stairs

Princess Celestia always paced back and forth excessively when she was nervous or scared, and she was both right now. She felt the fear creep around inside her like spiders in a network of webs, and it made her nauseous. Celestia's body shook, as if the inappropriate touch of a chill rose and fell along the slight curvature of her spine. She felt her heartbeat throb in her chest to an increased tempo; she could hear it thundering in her ears. A slight sweat had accumulated along her brow as her brain churned thoughts out like a jet of water.

The reason for Celestia's fear was that she had to deny a proposal from the Ponyment to raise the minimum wage from eight bits to ten, to help the apparently struggling middle class with paying the extra bills on time and save a few bits off to the side for recreational use. Celestia knew that this act sounded great on paper and like a sure way to help any who need a little help, a new tax would have to come out of this if she passed it. She knew that the Equestria treasury was limited and that there was a reason why her parents had set the minimum wage to where it was: if too much was given out while too little is coming in, there wouldn't be enough to give out after a while.

Celestia sighed with her thoughts and murmured: "This won't end well." She knew she was just telling herself the truth and hiding nothing, like she did with everypony else in her life. She felt her stomach twist and buckle with worry that any day now, a mob of angry ponies would storm the gates and demand new leadership, because of whatever she had done wrong with so many things; the largest being the agricultural policies she had made and were outdated by a few centuries, causing an unmistakable drop in food production from farms. Instead of fixing these policies, she increased the quota required from the farmers.

She knew she was a kind ruler, but she was an incompetent one at best who constantly needed help or advice, even if this advice and help was just as incompetent as she was. As somepony who was afraid to make any new decisions least she offend or upset somepony, which was why she created the Ponyment, so they would create the laws and all she had to do was accept of deny them, but almost anything that has been made under her rule lately has not worked, and because she is the ruler, she was the one blamed for everything.

Realizing what she was doing and where she was going with her woe-is-me thoughts, she pulled herself out of the hole that she was digging herself into and relaxed. Reading the proposal one last time, finding a problem with her grammar, she used her magic to pick up a quill on the desk beside her and scratched out the offending word. She finished by rolling up the parchment into a scroll and tying it off with a red ribbon adorned with the royal seal before setting it, along with others, in a box to be sent back to the Ponyment.

A knock sounded at the door. It was hasty and loud so it had to have been important or the knocker was in a hurry. Over the thousands of years, if there was one thing that Celestia has learned from politics, it was body language and other subtle things that ponies do and their reasons for doing it, and the ways she could use this to her advantage.
"Enter." She called out with authority.

A servant-butler came running into the room with his eyes wide with fear, even while still managing to look presentable in the suit he wore.

"My princess!" He breathed heavily as he spoke in broken strands of phrases. "A...mob...has...been collecting...at the gates!"

Wow...she hadn't even sent out the vetoes and the ponies were already rioting, her own inner humor tried to make light of the situation that everyone was in. She felt the tension in the room get strained like rubber being stretched to its limits. The joking aside, she needed to see the numbers of ponies that had managed to get her attention. She rushed out onto her balcony while the out-of-shape butler clutched at his side and leaned against a vanity to support himself.

Looking out, Celestia saw the mob was over a couple hundred leeches latching at the steel gates surrounding the castle. The ponies yelled obscenities at her when they saw her come out of her room. Sighing sadly, she shook her head, wondering what she had done wrong this time?

The butler hobbled to her side. "They all said that they were tired of being hungry."

Tired of being hungry? Sure the policies of agriculture were a little outdated, but not so much that ponies would be starving like this. It upset Celestia that her ponies would do such a thing for something that they could do so easily...such laziness."Then maybe they should go out and do some honest work for food, instead of standing around there going hungry."

She turned toward her companion to see a growing dark spot from his suit on his stomach. The mob hadn't sent a messenger. They sent a message.

"They hurt you." She stated to him with rare anger in her voice.

"It's nothing but a scratch, Princess.” He insisted. "One of the ponies down there had a knife. I don't know which one, there were just too many of them."

"RAIN!" Shouted the princess, and a guard rushed through the half open door.

"Yes?" He asked.

"TAKE EMIL QUICKLY TO THE INFIRMARY, THEN I WANT YOU TO HEAD TO SHINING ARMOR'S BARRACKS AND INFORM HIM OF MY ORDER FOR HIM TO GET THE GUARDS DOWN THERE...I WANT UNICORNS TO ERECT BARRIERS AROUND THAT MOB, I WANT THOSE PONIES TO STAND FOR TAKING THE FREEDOMS THAT I GIVE THEM AND GOING TOO FAR AND HURTING ANOTHER!"
~~~~~
Shining Armor looked irritable pale in the mirror as he dressed himself from the pjs he wore to his officer's uniform. He had been woken up and ordered to start a strange job: arrest the citizens that he he was supposed to protect. To justify these strange orders in his mind, to make him feel better about doing them, he cleared away these thoughts and only thought about how this mob might hurt another pony. With his training in the royal guard, he had enough practice to do this; to focus on nothing else but the job at hoof, and forget everything else until later. He sighed: this was going to be an interesting day.

Unknown to Shining at first, the door to his barracks room quietly opened and his little sister, Twilight Sparkle, personal student and protege to Princess Celestia, poked her head into the room. She saw his quick movements of anger, how he grabbed and pulled objects instead of picking them up, how he threw whatever he held down when he was done using it, how the collapsed face reflecting in the mirror was void of the kindness she was used to seeing from her brother. Twilight was shocked and frightened at how a pony could change so quickly and in so little time to make the change.

The reflection of his sister in the mirror brought his attention onto her. He didn't turn but he did make eye contact with her, and the gaze was commanding but with his love for her still showing through the annoyance. "Don't say anything, Twilight Sparkle. I'm not in the mood to talk right now. Get up to where the princess is, wherever she is, and stay out of the way."
Twilight did stay silent but her mind refused to stay quiet. How could her loving brother say such a thing, especially to his own sister, somepony whom he had never fought with once. He had used her full name too, Twilight listened when somepony called her Twilight SPARKLE. She almost tiptoed into the room and took a seat on the edge of the bed. She stayed quiet, not wanting to cause a fight with her brother.

After a few tense moments of Shining struggling to get his back leg through his guard uniform, Twilight bounded off the bed with an almost embarrassed merriment. She thought she could help him and maybe he wouldn't be so much of a grump. But before she could help him, a violent cough wracked his body, making his legs go out from underneath him, and he crashed to the floor in exhaustion as his mind regained control.

“Shining, are you okay?” Twilight cried and finished her rush to the unicorn as he continued to cough. The controlled posture and ideal looks of a soldier and a captain vanished, replaced with only a weak, sick looking shell of a young stallion. Once his coughing attack had finally stopped, Shining struggled to get up. Twilight got underneath him and pressed up under his stomach to give him some support.

“I don't need any help, Twilight.” He rebelled like a small foal, but Twilight refused to let him go.

“Yes you do Shining, and I can prove it to you using at least twelve different formulas on stallion personality and health.” With some intense shoving from Twilight, Shining got onto his bed where he hung his head down to get the nauseating swirl of room to slow down to a speed that allowed him to walk correctly. “You said that this was just a simple cold that will simply blow over. That was two weeks ago, and you are still having trouble. I think it's starting to get worse, tell you the truth, and I'm starting to worry about you.”

Her brother waved his hoof at her and raised his head up to meet her gaze with his. She could see the strength that made so many ponies respect him and had helped him in becoming the youngest Captain of the Guard in Equestrian history, it was pushing through the weakness until Shining stood up on all fours. He towered over his sister by a neck and a head, and Twilight had to look up at him to continue their gaze. “Twilight, what does three up and three down mean?” He asked as he pointed to the rank path on his shoulder.

Twilight turned her gaze to the patch remembering how hard her brother worked to get to where he was now. She saw where this was going and felt a bit unease come over her. “Well, Spike would just say 'the end of an inning...' hehe, such a child.”

Shining had the same unamused expression on his face that told Twilight that her attempt to defuse the situation had failed. “I'm asking you what you think it means, not what Spike says as a joke.” He continued to point at the patch.

Twilight, humiliated with herself, a small sigh for her actions pressed. “Captain.” She simply answered. This was like being treated like a foal, and she didn't like that feeling.

“Captain, yes. Did I get this far by being weak?”

“But being sick doesn't mean your...” Twilight tried to get Shining down from the pedestal of light that he was placed upon.
Shining raised his hoof and she was silent. “Answer the question.”

“No.” Twilight ultimately said, her cheeks red from embarrassment.

“Right. I have a job to do as Captain of the Guard, the leader of the protectors that protect the citizens. I can't do that if I'm in bed with a simple cold. Many of the colts out there look up to me, I can't turn them down. I know you love me and want the best for me, but I have to do what is best for the ponies of Canterlot.” With that end note, Shining Armor, youngest Captain of the Royal Guards, leader, marched out the door in all of his gilded glory.

Twilight stood back in the room for a little bit longer. The image of her brother acting like that was fresh in her mind and she wanted it out now. She used happier memories of when they were little and played together like there was no tomorrow, not the life that they both had now. Twilight felt so much nostalgia, she smiled widely.

But then she remembered the situation that the castle's inhabitants faced and this popped the bubble to get her back to the present day. Biting her lip, the unicorn uncoordinatedly rushed up to her mentor's room, where she knew Celestia would be looking out from the balcony at the front gates. Twilight had to give herself a pat on the back for being right once again. But her mind conflicted with the happy mental gesture when she saw the princess' emotionless face, the muscles in her cheeks not up or down, her brow unfurrowed, the eyes that were empty as theater with no movie to play.

Walking out onto the balcony alongside her mentor, Twilight saw that the rioters were slowly growing in size from the first time she had seen them through her window of her room on the top floor of the left tower of the castle. She felt in her gut that something was coming, and she turned to find a rock sailing through the air straight at her, which she barely had time to duck under. She found that the mob was throwing other rocks and other projectiles that would definitely do some damage should they hit. Looking to the princess with worried eyes, Twilight wondered why the princess would stand where she could get hit, unmoving from the possible pain, when she noticed a shimmer in the light surrounding the princess and Twilight knew that she had a shield surrounding her.

“If you want to be out here with me Twilight Sparkle, you best stand next to me back here so you don't get hit, I have a shield spell protecting me.” Celestia spoke to Twilight while her unemotional stare continued. The tone that she spoke her words with made Twilight shake, as if a cold draft crawled down her back. It was just so unlike the princess to speak as if she didn't care.

Twilight's pride when it came to anything magic made her one to not rely on others in that department, especially for a simple shield spell, so she created her own. Letting the princess know that she didn't need the help, Twilight was surprised to not hear even a sigh.

This made Twilight press her mental issue that she had with the princess at this time. “Princess, how come you tell me 'revenge is never the answer to the problems we face', but here you are taking revenge out on them for hurting Emil? I know it was a stab wound, but it wasn't that bad.”

Once again, the princess never looked away nor lost the confidence in her speech as she replied: “This isn't revenge, this is prosecution. They stabbed Emil and there are some things that ponies do that cross the line: this is one of them. If they are not punished for what they did, what message does that send others?”

“That makes sense, but wouldn't this be somewhat of an act of war on your own ponies?”

“Not if they know why they are being arrested.”

“Princess, we both know that ponies don't work that way. This would be the first time in how long that you have had to use your forces on your own ponies? They may ignore the incident and only focus on the arrest. This could cause a civil war.”
For the first time, Celestia turned to look at the purple unicorn, who saw the look of fear in her eyes. “Do you doubt my rule?”

The sound of that question shook Twilight to the core. It was like the princess was threatening her. She answered slowly and picked her words carefully to still try and get her own point across to the leader. “No, Princess Celestia, I wouldn't do that. But the thought still bugs and even worries me.”

“Twilight, it's better that you keep to your magic studies. I'll worry about politics.” These words weren't comforting. Twilight was unsure if the princess meant them to be or not, but she knew she had spoken when she wasn't supposed to.

“I'm sorry for stepping out of line Princess, I'm just worried about what they would do.” She couldn't help that feeling. If they were willing to hurt somepony and still make the demands they did, then who knows how far they would go, and most likely these ponies were only the tip of the iceberg with many more from around Equestria who would share their point of view. What would they do when they learned that THE Princess Celestia used force on her own ponies? Twilight believed that this was only the beginning.

Also, Twilight couldn't help if there was some ulterior motive to all of this: Celestia had never been this violent before, but the unicorn protege kept her mouth shut.

Author's Note:

Edited by BlackRoseRaven from fanfiction.net

I'm sorry that this took so long to get done with so little product to give out. With high school graduation looming in the distance as well as me pushing to make Eagle Scout in time, I've found it near impossible to find the time to write the draft, write it a second time, then transcribe that onto my computer to upload onto the site.

Don't expect much for a little while but eventually, in a couple weeks or months, things will calm down and I will get back to writing my favorite fanfiction.

Comments

[Nolongerposting]

So after reading this chapter I thought you did a pretty good job at portraying Celestia except for the last paragraph. Her basic reaction was good but the exact fraseing seems a little off. After reading it again I think its mostly the; especially one of the royal house, I want none to escape. I feel like Celestia would be more focused on that they harmed another and not so much that they harmed a member of the royal house. The none shall escape sounds more like a death order I feel like she would have said something with the same meaning but sounded more regal, maybe something like; all of the prosecutors will be punished.
Other than that I liked your continuation even if I wasn't quite sure how this chapter ties into the rest of the story. Guess I'll just have to wait for the next chapter . Hope that I helped and had the sort of advice that you were looking for.

[Lovinlife]

2439966
Thank you for the advise :)

[SilentBelle]

Hmm, an incompetent Celestia? Not what I was expecting...

Things I didn't like:
This chapter could use a once-over. It has numerous small spelling or grammar issues.

I don't know if this could actually happen. It's straining my believability in terms of what we already know Celestia to be, and how she was regarded. If this had been set a couple hundred years earlier, then I could imagine Celestia having these issues. After all, she's been ruling for nearly a thousand years, it's hard to imagine she'd be having such basic difficulties.

Also, the economics thing. (More of a gripe, since I believe that Celestia would probably be leaning more toward raising minimum wage) I think it would be better if she said she wants to raise the minimum wage, but the upper-class would all be against it, and she'd rather not have her capital city, and all the nobles (the ponies that protect her and keep order in the city) wanting to oust her. Falling to inaction (the veto) in the hope that the fallout would be less damaging.

There was no Crystal in this chapter... She's the protagonist and the one that I am most invested in seeing.

Things I liked:
Well, it introduced a conflict that I think will be very interesting for Crystal to be pulled into, one way or another.

I like concept behind a poorly ruling Celestia, (though it lacks a certain level of believability.

And for a side note:
What's with those character tags in the story? At most I think that it should be tagged with OC, Celestia, and Twilight.

Anyway, onto the next chapter.