Chapter 1
Me, myself and a Table for Two
Princess Celestia sat at the dinner table alone. Now, it should be noted that this was not the norm; on any other given occasion she would be surrounded by an veritable army of ‘nobles’ who desired her attentions, business ponies who desired her money, or suitors who desired her. No, sitting alone was not a situation she was particularly prone to, nor did she even enjoy it.
But this night was special. It came once a year, and for her purposes at least, meant something only to her. Every year she would come to her dining quarters and request that for this night a single table for two be placed in its center, silverware for two be placed on the table, plates for two be placed next to the silverware, and fine dining glasses be placed next to the plates. Every year she did this, and had done so without fail.
Whenever asked by a noble who had apparently been allotted this particular time to speak with her asked her why she rebuffed them, asked who it was that shared the single table for two, she would only ever answer “Myself.” While any soldier knew this ritual, many did not, and she was not inclined to tell them.
The second placing was for the one who would never come. A military pony would call it the “P.O.W.’s Place setting,” a table set for soldiers who would in no knowable fashion be coming to occupy the chair. Her situation was a tad more complicated than that, but the tradition was in effect the base of her own actions.
Some thousand years ago, she had been forced to do the unspeakable, forced to banish her own sister to the moon for a thousand years. She had had no choice; her sister had been overcome by jealousy, which Celestia herself had regrettably done nothing to ebb or dissuade, and had taken the mantle of Nightmare Moon. For two weeks she waited, for two weeks she pleaded with her aggrieved sister to lower the moon from the sky and allow the life giving sun to return. She had begged her dear sister to release her anger, told her that her point had been made and no further suffering need be laid upon the ponies of Equestria. But her sister would not listen, and Celestia been taken to her breaking point.
She hit her breaking point when she found a small motionless form.It had been amethyst, a young unicorn she had taken under her wing and begun to teach magic after the death of her parents in the ill-fated battle for the Crystal Empire several years prior. Celestia remembered the filly had been extremely emotional, and had a puppy dog stare that could melt steel. But she never saw that stare again, never saw the young filly grow to adulthood and do the magnificent things Celestia had been sure she was destined for. The frail child had succumbed to cold and fear in Luna’s eternal night, and Celestia had found her lifeless body beneath the stairs leading to her room.
A line had been crossed, and through tears that spoke of pain already felt and pain yet to come, she gathered the Elements of Harmony, weapons of unimaginable power and purity, and at the end of a harsh battle with her sibling, had banished the usurper known as Nightmare Moon, and her sister right along with her to the moon for the next thousand years.
The morning after, in the brilliant light of day, day that had been lost for two weeks, all of Equestria rejoiced. Every city, town and province was swept in a frivolity that lasted days. In the Royal capitol, then located in the City of the Sisters, what is now the Everfree Forest, the revelry produced a cacophony strong enough to shake the dust from the walls and the dirt from the floor. All celebrated and embraced, all drank and sang, all raised praise to the now sole Ruler of Equestria. And through it all, Celestia wept inconsolably. For days she cried such bitter tears of pain and sorrow that the pure white coat was stained with the yellowing salt of her tears and he eyes swelled to disgusting proportions; and then she wept some more. When finally left her room, it was to eat. As she forced herself to eat a meager but filling meal, nearly the entire city came to congratulate and thank her. It stopped when some nameless noble left the room in a stretcher. She had begun life as one of a an immortal pair, assured that her eternity would be spent with the one she cherished most. With that suddenly stripped from her, it did not do well to refer to the other as a “nighttime bitch,” whether there was a ‘w’ there or not.
Her composure eventually returned, but her sadness was never quite satiated, her regret and fear that perhaps she had not done enough, had not tried harder, never left her. So, two years following that accursed day, she asked for a table to be set in her dining hall. She asked that it be a table for two, asked that silverware for two be placed on the table, plates for two be placed next to the silverware, and fine dining glasses be placed next to the plates. When asked who the other seat was for, she would say “For myself,” for the part of herself that would not come to occupy the seat, her beloved sister Luna.
Even in the coming years, when the encroaching Darkforest Everfree threatened the capitol, when it was decided that the safest city in the world be built on the side of a distant mountain, that it’s name would be Canterlot, as she waited in a small camp awaiting the building of her new home, she performed her ritual.
Sometimes she would sit and talk to the space, tell it how well things were going and how proud it would be of their ponies progress, or sometimes she would tell it all about her day and some of the changes that had been made, or sometimes she would tell it how much she missed it and how sorry she was, how she didn't blame it and it was all her own fault. Sometimes she would sit quietly and stare at what should have been there but wasn't.
She didn't always eat something at the table for two, but when she did, she would not fill the other plate, as doing so would have most certainly been too much. She did however have a tendency to fill the wineglass of the empty chair. It was no sign of psychosis, though she did sometimes wonder after it after the deed was done, but an echo of a promise made.
As children, they had not been royalty in the conventional sense. They did not have a castle or servants, save a round the clock caregiver named Magenta Cares, and so all their needs were not always met on the spot. Celestia had come upon her younger sister in the kitchen crying, and when asked why, she said that she was thirsty but could not reach or levitate the small gourd of water. Celestia had lowered the gourd as well as a glass and filled it to the brim. Passing it to her parched sibling, she said “So long as we are sisters, your cup shall never be found wanting.” And so for the rest of their lives, even after they had been proclaimed high Princesses of Equestria, Celestia had a habit of taking the jars of water or wine or what-have-you from the servants and pouring her sisters glass herself, in homage to this oath.
And so this night, the ancient Princess sat at a table for two alone. What was different about this night, however, was a combination of several things. First of all, she had not begun the ritual as such. Second of all, she had not been the one to bring the night as it had been for a thousand years. And third of all, never before had there been a figure lodged in the doorway to the kitchen, using the Royal Canterlot Voice to berate the chefs on their tardiness, its little black and midnight blue butt wagging impatiently.
By some bizarre turn of events, Luna had learned of this regular dinner of her sister’s, and had insisted on taking part in it this year. It would be perfect, a marvelous chance for Celestia to catch her up on recent things, for them to be sisters again. And the stars be damned if she would allow these infernal cooks to mess it up! “What is the meaning of this?!” she called to the visibly flustered head chef. “We, and let it be known that that is not the royal we, have been waiting for thirty minutes!” she had been having some problems in communication, it seemed, and Celestia had ended up with a duplicate of Luna’s attempt to become familiar with every kind of desert the modern world had to offer. “On soup!!”
“Yes Princess, I am aware, and I promise that it is nearly done, but the longer you draw my attention, the longer you will have to wait!” said the head chef haughtily, thoroughly un-amused with this newest addition, or re-addition, to the royal family. She had been a deliberate thorn in his side since her return, upset with the length of time it took to cook her meals. She did not understand the ornate intricacies required of him, or the safety and health requirements for modern cooking in general, let alone for royalty. Even the poison testing (that one really stuck in his craw. As if he would poison the Princess! With food even!) took nearly ten minutes.
“Do not strike such a tone with us!” she replied dangerously. “We are still the Princess of the Night last we checked!” and on an after-thought “And even our thousand-year-out-of-practice royal posterior could make a bowl of tomato and basil soup faster than thirty minutes!”
Before the Chef could make an extremely off color comment regarding the royal posterior in question, one that would most certainly have cost him his job but given him a great deal of satisfaction in the process, the executive under-chef approached carrying a tray with two bowls of the aforementioned soup. “Your highness' meal is ready.” He said in a dignified manner. “Shall I bring the meal to your table now, or shall I wait for her Highness to take her seat?”
“Neither!” said a decidedly fed up Luna. “We shall bring the soup to our sister our self.” With that a shimmering blue aura enveloped the tray and its contents and carried them through the door and past the unhappy blue alicorn who created it.
As the French doors swung closed repeatedly, the executive under-chef approached his superior. “That was close. Thought she'd fry us for sure.” When he received silence in place of the expected snarky remark, he turned to face the older stallion. “You ok?”
“Fine” Answered the subdued chef. “Very fine.” When he got a funny look, he finished with “Just changing my mind on something.” The royal posterior wasn’t nearly as bad as he had first thought.
“We are very sorry, dear sister.” Said Luna, notably exasperated by the altercation. “The Head Chef has no time management skills.” But when Luna got back to the table, instead of a demure and composed sovereign of the sun, she found an alicorn crying her purple eyes out. “Sister!” she cried, fearful she had somehow ruined the evening for her sister.
“Sister what ever is the matter?!” she would have the chefs head for this! (if not this, then the dreams she found in him later that night involving her rear and an obscene amount of overly creamy cake.)
But her sister looked up through her tears and smiled as she had not in some time. “Nothing is wrong sister. Nothing will ever be wrong again.” She stood and before her sister could think to back away, she embraced the smaller blue form of the one lost to her for a thousand years. “For the first time, in a far too long stretch of time, it is me and you and a table for two.”
Luna held the embrace, keenly aware now of the cause of her sisters tears, until it became unbearable to allow the weeping to continue. She separated herself from the soggy diarch and said “Well, you must be as parched as I sister, waiting as we have.” She sat in her chair, Celestia in the opposite one drying her tears. She didn’t notice the twitch. “Shall we have wine brought forth?”
Celestia couldn’t help it. She began to cry again, but managed to ask in between sobs “Sure, but can I pour yours for you?”