The stars seemed to crowd the sky above the balcony of Twilight’s library home, as if to peer down on the two ponies nestled together in the crisp, clear air. The larger, darker one sang softly as she worked brush over canvas, drawing not the night sky but a city street; a recollection from long ago and far away. The smaller, lighter pony pricked one ear, then both, finally tearing her gaze away from an oversized tome and looking over at Luna.
“What song is that?” Twilight asked. “I don’t even recognize the language.”
Luna regarded her canvas. It was a half-finished memory, being recaptured stroke by stroke, summoned forth from the swirling mists of her ancient past. Perfect recall was not one of her gifts, so through story and song, art and sculpture, she’d been steadily forging links to her own lost history.
“It’s an old, old journeying hymn,” she replied after that moment of contemplation. “I heard it there first,” she nodded at the painting. “In Trotpoli.”
“Trotpoli?” Twilight arched her neck to look at the colorful canvas, where frescoed buildings paraded proudly along a cobblestone boulevard. The ponies themselves were nearly as proud, wearing amber and rose gold, looking as if they were about to trot out onto the balcony. “I’ve read about that city!” Her eyes sparkled as facts filed obediently through her mind and bowed, courtier-like, to her intellect. “It was at the center of Pelloponysos nearly two thousand years ago. There’s not much left now, but at the time it was the height of culture. They were the first ones to define the hornspiral theorem, not to mention the first principles of modern magical language.”
Twilight’s words slipped into the familiar cadence of lecture, donning the cloak of knowledge stitched by innumerable scholars over uncounted years. Luna lowered her brush, recognizing the change in tone, and a smile touched her muzzle as Twilight continued on. Such occasions were like dropping a stone into a pond, ripples of knowledge spreading outward from a single point, illuminating connections and events that raised her memories above a simple historical occurrence. Sometimes those ripples met others, touched, and built up into a new recollection. As Luna listened to Twilight, two different sparks of light connected and a memory surfaced.
“...and of course Tailes practically invented deductive reasoning!”
“Tailes of Maretus?” Luna blinked at Twilight. “I knew him.”
“You did?” Twilight gazed at Luna, suddenly and utterly rapt. “What was he like?” For Twilight, Luna’s reminiscence produced unexpected islands in her sea of knowledge, summits to climb and gain a new perspective. It made Luna a conspirator, a collaborator in the unicorn’s endless search for knowledge rather than a teacher.
In response, Luna lifted her brush again, bringing forth on the canvas a rather ordinary-looking earth pony, eschewing the finery of the others on the streets of Trotpoli. His brown eyes were lifted heavenward, past the bright buildings, looking at something only he could see. “He was...sharp. Sharp of mind, sharp of wit, and sharp of tongue.”
Her voice and accent shifted as she began to speak, the flavors of the distant past lending richness to her words. “Threescore nights on the palace steps, spent he, petitioning for an eclipse. And when finally granted an audience, Tailes of Maretus spent twelve of his fifteen minutes chastising mine beloved sister and I.”
She paused, offering an aside in a dry tone. “I think that was the first time anyone had complained to either of us that we weren’t being precise enough with our charges. He spent quite some time explaining, in his own acerbic style, how he couldn’t determine how large the sun or moon were because of it. You can just imagine the look on Tia’s face.”
Twilight giggled. “I’m a little bit of a lecturer myself, so I think I can guess what it was like.”
“I had noticed that about you.” Luna grinned at Twilight. “You are somewhat similar - intelligent, driven, not afraid to speak your mind - but I daresay I prefer your lectures to that particular dressing-down.”
“Thanks...I think.” Twilight raised one eyebrow skeptically at Luna, who responded by sticking out her tongue.
“Anyway, he only stayed around a few years,” Luna continued. “A hunger had he that could not be satisfied by city streets and columnéd temples, but only by traveling the broad back of the world. I read his dispatches for some time after, as they flowed sluggishly through the arteries of Pelloponysos.”
“You got to read the Traveling Letters as they were being written?” Twilight fairly vibrated with excitement, pressing in against Luna as if she could absorb the history by osmosis. “You have no idea how jealous I am right now.”
“I believe I have an idea,” Luna said lightly. “The way you’re trying to absorb all the history that you seem to sense wafting from my coat.”
Twilight blushed, pulling away slightly. “Sorry -” she began, but Luna interrupted, the alicorn’s smile growing several shades more mischievous.
“No, let me help!” She stretched out her wings and leaned sideways, toppling them both over and sprawling out over Twilight on the balcony. The unicorn squealed and laughed, pushing at Luna as the larger pony pinned her. “Tremble before the weight of history!”
“Ack! Too much history!” Twilight squirmed underneath Luna, then stilled as the alicorn’s muzzle touched her own.
Their kiss was interrupted by sharp rapping on the door of the library below, and the two of them shared a wry look before Twilight opened up her other perceptions. The world expanded and fell away, matter writ strong and proud over the shifting, whispering sea of magic. Luna’s dark presence was wrapped close, cloaking her form in stellar glory, while the far-away point of Celestia’s brilliance cast invisible shadows, stretching out from Canterlot.
Below, at the door, was the shining spark of Rarity. In the single, cascading moment of revelation she allowed herself before closing her divine eyes again, Twilight found the others, brilliant souls linked by the threads of their friendship, all making their way toward the library. It was her own fault, of course. She’d asked them to be present for the dawn, and they had all agreed - even Rainbow Dash, if with a certain amount of grumbling.
“Lost track of time again,” Twilight sighed, and Luna gave her a quick nuzzle as they disentangled themselves.
“We both have that habit, I fear.” Luna resettled her wings against her sides. “But we’ll have precious little opportunity to indulge it in the coming week.”
“Or else we’ll have a lot of unhappy farming ponies,” Twilight agreed. Rarity rapped at the door again, her voice floating upward.
“Twilight? Princess Luna?”
Twilight asked a question with a tilt of her head, and Luna nodded. The unicorn’s horn flashed as she teleported them from the balcony down to the first floor of the library, but Spike was already opening the door in response to Rarity’s voice. “They’re just upstairs, Rarity,” he said, stifling a yawn. “Come on in.”
“Why, thank you, Spike.” Rarity gave him a brilliant smile before trotting in. “It does seem they’re down here now,” she noted, and Spike turned to blink at the two of them.
“Oh.” Spike pushed the door closed again behind Rarity. “Well that’s just cheating,” he muttered under his breath, trotting over to Rarity’s side.
“Oh dear, I’m the first one, aren’t I?” The white unicorn looked around the library. “Well, I suppose one can be fashionably early as well as fashionably late.”
“Everything you do is fashionable, Rarity,” Spike put in, and Twilight suppressed a snort.
“Yes, you’re the first, but the others are on their way,” she said. “Thank you so much for coming, I know it’s early...”
“Well, the beauty sleep is important, but not as important as friendship,” Rarity said brightly. “I’m honored to be here. And since I am up at this hour,” she turned to Luna. “I must say the night is marvelous to-” Rarity hesitated a brief moment, then continued gamely. “-night. Quite bracing and brilliant.”
“Thank you, Rarity.” Luna’s smile held amusement and pride in equal measure. She knew the fashionista’s compliments were genuine, but Rarity was ever the courtier. “I thought a unique dawn deserved a lovely night before it.”
“Yeah, the stars are like, natural fireworks!” Of the four of them, only Luna jumped at Pinkie Pie’s expectedly unexpected interjection. “Pow! Whoosh! Zoom!” She bounced over to join them. “Are you excited?” She drawled the last word, stretching it out and grinning at Twilight.
“Maybe a little,” Twilight admitted. “More nervous, I think.”
“Well of course you are! If I were you I’d be a super-nervousy nervous pants!” Pinkie agreed cheerfully, and Twilight winced.
“Pinkie, dear,” Rarity began, but another rap on the door stopped her. It was sharp and brusque, and it took no scrying to recognize Applejack’s hoof. Spike was firmly attached to Rarity’s side, so Twilight opened the door herself. The orange earth pony ducked inside, giving a brief bow to Luna.
“Fluttershy’s off getting RD,” she told them with a hint of impatience in her voice. “I swear that gal would sleep eighteen hours a day if we let her.”
“It’s all right, Applejack,” Twilight said soothingly. “I’m sure they’ll be on time.”
“I suppose so.” She gave a brief toss of her head, dismissing it, and trotted over to join the rest of them. “But I’m running a tad late myself. You know how it is.”
“How can you be late when it’s not dawn yet, silly?” Pinkie shook her head at Applejack. “Nobody can be late if Celestia isn’t here yet!”
“You have an astounding capacity for timing, Pinkamena,” Luna murmured, tilting her head in the direction of Canterlot.
“I do?” Pinkie asked innocently. The question was answered with the flash of Celestia’s light, her presence briefly illuminating the room. Three of the ponies bowed reflexively, but Luna and Twilight stepped over to greet the sun princess more personally.
“Luna, my beloved sister,” Celestia said, embracing Luna tightly, the two of them laying their heads on each other’s withers and closing their eyes in a moment of quiet closeness. Then she smiled at Twilight and exchanged the same gesture, though with a shade less intimacy. “And Twilight, my faithful student. Though not just my student anymore, I think.” Celestia’s gentle smile and soft voice robbed the statement of any barb that might have been found in it.
“No, I suppose not,” Twilight admitted, sharing a long, half-guilty glance with Luna, and Celestia shook her head slightly.
“No teacher can teach you all you need to know,” she said quietly, speaking to Twilight’s thoughts rather than her words. “Not even me.” Then her smile turned faintly teasing, a sudden sparkle in her eyes. “Especially not me. More than a millennium of court life leaves one with a rather peculiar view of the world.”
“Well, you’ll have some time away from it now.” Twilight offered. “So long as I can do this, that is.”
“You have no problem with the stars,” Luna reassured her. “I have no doubt that you will be up to the task.”
The soft noise of wings outside announced the arrival of the last two ponies. Rainbow Dash pushed open the door without bothering to knock, flitting into the room while Fluttershy peered hesitantly around the jamb. “Oh dear,” Fluttershy ventured. “We’re not late, are we?”
“I don’t see how,” Rainbow Dash yawned. “The sun isn’t up yet.” She blinked blearily around the room, her eyes widening as she belatedly noticed the presence of both the rulers of Equestria. “Oh. Um. Princess. Princesses.” She dropped down and essayed a hasty bow, and Celestia smiled fondly.
“Welcome Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash. You are certainly in time. But I am not in charge of the sun this morning.” She inclined her head to the purple unicorn standing in front of her. “This is Twilight’s dawn.”
“Right.” Rainbow Dash looked over at Twilight, who shifted nervously under the combined gaze of seven other ponies.
“Well, it’s not supposed to be dawn for another...” Twilight glanced at the clock, the second hand sweeping slowly around the face. “Seventeen minutes and thirty four seconds. But I suppose we can go to the balcony now!” The last sentence came out with an air of forced cheer, as she realized she had failed to account for the full reality of playing host between her friends’ arrival and the performance of her new duty.
She waved them toward the stairs to the balcony, and her friends fell in behind the two alicorns. “Is this something that will involve the Elements of Harmony?” Rarity asked delicately. “I know Princess Celestia raises the sun and Princess Luna the moon, but celestial mechanics are not precisely my métier.”
“Ah...no.” Twilight shot a quick glance at Celestia, but the princess seemed content to let Twilight explain. “I simply need you here as friends. Not that there’s anything simple about that!” She hastened to add. “It’s just - you know what I mean.”
“Of course we do!” Pinkie laughed, bouncing over Applejack and nearly colliding with Rainbow Dash as she tackled Twilight with a vicious hug that bowled the unicorn over. “You want your bestest buds to be there while you bring the big ball up to the sky!”
“Well...yes.” Twilight giggled, her horn shimmering faintly as she shifted Pinkie enough for her to regain her hooves.
“Don’t worry, Twilight. We’re here for you.” Fluttershy’s voice was even quieter than usual in the presence of combined royalty, to the point where mortal ears would have to strain to hear her. But even with her godhead leashed and controlled, her power and senses shuttered down to mundanity, Twilight was no longer quite mortal.
“Thank you.” The warmth in her voice surprised even Twilight, sounding for a moment more like Celestia than herself, and her mind scattered off on a dozen different pathways speculating why. Her mental checklist was rife with possibilities: it was an inevitable effect of godhood, she was unconsciously trying to emulate Celestia, she was simply more nervous than she had realized. She had no real answers though, and finally filed it away as they crowded out onto the balcony.
The books and art supplies strewn over the wood and propped up against the railings took up most of the space, and Twilight hastily relocated her contribution to the mess, the books flickering away and appearing on the library floor. Luna’s canvas and palette faded into blackness, wedge and knife and brush simply melting away into the shadows as she followed Twilight’s example in her own particular way.
“So!” Twilight said brightly, looking around at the ponies gathered at her request.
“You can begin now if you wish, Twilight Sparkle. I do not think anypony will mind a few minutes of difference just this once.” Celestia looked to the east, where the canvas of night was beginning to shade toward purple.
Luna and Twilight shared another glance, but this time they grinned at each other in recognition of the irony in that sentiment given Luna’s earlier story. “All right. Wish me luck, everypony!” Twilight faced the east, backed by a chorus of well-wishes and good intent, and slipped loose the fetters of her mind.
Again the world expanded, her perceptions stretching out to grasp the firmament upon which all things were fixed. Luna’s dark presence and Celestia’s bright one flanked her, coiling about each other and leading off in opposite directions, linked to the celestial bodies they safeguarded and in some ways were. Between the two the world stretched out in all its strange glory, with reclusive mountains and bright defiles, points and peoples of power both dark and light, peaceful and hostile, familiar and alien in an astounding tapestry.
It was something she longed to explore, but both princesses had cautioned her. Given her experience with the few other gods she’d encountered it was advice she took to heart, but she still looked upon the astounding blanket of creation with barely restrained avarice. She gave herself several long moments of contemplation before ascending along Celestia’s beacon toward the empyrean blaze.
It invited and threatened in equal measure, both the sun that nourished life and the sun that scorched the deserts. The power was nearly unimaginable in its intensity but incredibly limited in its breadth, utterly unlike a unicorn’s magic or even her own burgeoning divinity, and holding within it a piece of Celestia’s soul. She could feel the sun goddess with even the faintest brush against the fire, the mass of millennia of memories lending its own unique essence to the overwhelming presence.
Twilight embraced the sun, accepting the flames as her own and holding the great sphere in the grasp of her power. To simply move it was well within her power, but movement was not enough. As she had learned with the stars, the goddess sustained the paradox of truths, so that the night sky was both Luna’s canvas and the objective universe, billions of stars lighting a void uncountable miles away. Celestia’s sun had a profoundly different, and in some ways more subtle, truth.
The world was a sphere, or rather, an oblate spheroid, for Twilight saw no need for precision to yield to mysticism, and yet the sun was definitely raised in the morning and set in its track along the sky. It rose on Equestria, it set on Equestria, and yet it nourished the rest of the world as well. This was not a simple matter of interpretation, for if the sun did not rise for Equestria, as had been the case on the day Nightmare Moon had returned, it rose for nobody, and the entire world was swathed in darkness.
The paradox was part of Celestia’s fundamental nature, but Twilight had to grasp it, understand it, and make it her own. It was a test where the only answer was the one she found for herself, one that was part of her nature. The puzzle was not one of power, but of understanding, and Twilight was nothing if not a student. She looked to the sun, and learned.
The watching ponies drew in a collective breath as color suddenly washed the lightening sky to the east, though they were not quite the usual pinks and yellows of Celestia’s craft. Instead they were tinted with the deeper purples of Twilight’s mane, giving it an appearance somewhere between dusk and dawn. The sky grew brighter, but the colors stayed in the liminal realm between night and day, uncertainly chasing the stars overhead. Then, finally, rays of light lanced forth from beyond the far mountains, haloing the clouds in a lambent golden radiance.
The sun came up.
Seven pairs of eyes drank in the sight of the dawn. Spike clung to Twilight’s leg, while her friends crowded in around her as she beamed proudly, regarding her handiwork. Only the princesses were not looking at the newly-risen sun. Celestia stood, neck arched, head bowed, eyes closed, her expression utterly unreadable as for the first time in her long life she yielded her duty to another. Luna, of them all, had eyes only for Twilight, watching her unicorn take her first steps among the gods.
From Far, From Eve And Morning, And Yon Twelve-Winded Sky
To live within the confines of duty is to have the length and breadth of the world defined. After long enough in that world, it is easy to lose sight of anything that lies outside those boundaries. The walls become invisible, the habits unquestioned, and the weight of responsibility turns to air - unseen, omnipresent, and impossible to live without. To be freed of that duty, then, is to be hurled into the vasty depths of the sea, a heaving, uncertain, and foreign world.
And Celestia was drowning. She floundered helplessly, suddenly weightless in a crashing tide of freedom as the immeasurable weight of the sun was lifted from her shoulders. The sudden shift in perspective was just as profound as the ripples of divine power shivering through her soul, a twinned shift in the world’s order.
Her face betrayed none of her inner struggle. After so long holding court, her expression was always precisely what she intended it to be. Celestia found that she rarely had to hide her feelings, but the fine shades and gradations of a smile or an inquisitive eyebrow rippled out into widely varying causatum, and she was keenly aware of how much influence a single misplaced frown could have.
So she did not frown, for the internal tumult was welcome. It was a feeling she had been pursuing since her first taste, when Luna had cracked their cage walls a thousand years ago and shattered her own bonds of duty. It was a revelation that, like most, had been born of pain and adversity, and despite its importance she had yet to share it with its progenitor.
It wasn’t that Luna wouldn’t understand; she was after all a very clever pony. But the princess of the night had struggled through so much that Celestia didn’t want to diminish her hard-fought understanding with what was perhaps a selfish consideration. A pony must claim her failures as well as her successes, and to reduce Luna’s most profound act to a mere seed in one of Celestia’s plots was to do her a tremendous disservice.
The sun settled into its track, and Celestia opened her eyes. Twilight, newly born into her powers, had described her perceptions as lights and shadows, a threaded skein over and under Equestria. To Celestia, after thousands of years of experience, there was little ambiguity left in what the goddess of the sun could sense. Every pony, every animal, every plant had a depth, the sum total of their connections to everything else, allowing her to see the tapestry of creation as it was woven. But she had neither premonition nor precognition, it was only the present she understood.
Twilight was almost painful to look at. It wasn’t just the brilliant, arcane inferno of her godhood, but the way she gathered all the world to herself. Scholar incarnate, the eternal student, everything touched her and she touched it in turn. She was not simply nourished by the world, but exalted.
Luna, by contrast, had worryingly few connections to the world. She had never been quite as grounded as even pegasi, but in the past she had made up for that by what she poured forth upon creation. The Muse, the artist, once she had spread inspiration over the lands. Once, she had hummed a tune that founded a nation. Once, six simple words had quarried ten thousand tons of stone and built the greatest cities of Equestria. Once.
Celestia believed she would return to that role in time, and the canvas Luna had spirited away lent credence to that hope. Tethered to Twilight, she would have the opportunity to flourish again without unsupported leaps into an emotional abyss, and Twilight would have a more appropriate guide to her new role than Celestia. They both needed a true companion, not a mentor, mother, or elder.
She let Twilight bask in the glow of her sunrise and absorb the congratulations of her friends without comment for a time. Even, or especially, in an immortal life, there were times to be seized, enjoyed, treasured. Celestia was tempted to leave them to their celebration, and ask no more. By that one simple act Twilight had done more for Celestia than she could possibly understand, yet the raising of the sun was only necessary and not sufficient. For both their sakes she had to pass on a greater burden.
“Well done, my dear Twilight Sparkle.” Celestia’s voice cut with scalpel precision into a brief conversational lull. “I knew you would find the truths you needed.” She smiled fondly at the unicorn as Twilight beamed proudly, flushed with her success. “I trust, then, that I will see you and Luna in Canterlot this evening?”
“Of course, Princess!” Twilight’s eyes sparkled with excitement, but Luna’s expression was somewhat more somber. Perhaps only Celestia could see it, but there was a certain dread buried deep in the turquoise of her eyes. She had not taken up the mantle of Equestria in a very long time, and she knew far better than Twilight what it entailed. But the naked fear that had dwelled there for far too long had been banished, and she even had a genuine smile.
“Then I will leave you to enjoy yourself with your friends. There is much to do before the announcement.” She watched Twilight’s expression flicker through surprise, surmise, and conclusion, but it was Luna who spoke.
“You have not announced the...scheduling shift yourself, Sister? Or Twilight’s new status?” There was a hint of well-deserved accusation in the question, and Celestia bowed her head in acknowledgement.
“I have not. It is not my place to make such decisions for either of you.” All the ponies were focused on her now, drawn inexorably by her voice. “You will not be simply filling in for me, but ruling in your own right. And Twilight, you must decide what role you will take, which secrets to hold and which to let go.”
Some of the anticipatory spark went out of Twilight’s eyes, replaced by the diamond glint of determination. “I understand,” she said firmly. It was the tone of voice that threatened the subject at hand with painstaking rigor; a uniquely Twilight approach to the responsibilities of godhood.
“So you’re not leaving any notes, or suggestions?” Luna’s voice was careful, tentative. The strained fragility between them tore at Celestia’s heart, especially as it was so fully justified. She longed to close that gap, but to confess all her machinations at once would shatter the relationship they had. But perhaps the vacation would give all of them the perspective they needed to mend those wounds.
“Not as such. There are the functionaries, of course, and I am aware Twilight has become well-versed in Equestrian Law recently.” She smiled as Twilight glanced involuntarily back at the library, where several stacks of weighty monographs bore evidence to the unicorn’s study. “But I would not impose my style of rule on either of you. It has been some time since we truly ruled as a diarchy, sister. T’would be better that you find your own balance before we establish the old ways again.”
Left unsaid was that Luna would be guiding Twilight as much as Equestria, and those duties were of equal importance not just to her, but to all the inhabitants of the land she safeguarded. Celestia watched the currents of emotion ripple across Luna’s face: speculation, skepticism, hope, and finally determination before her expression smoothed back to a playful smile. “So you’re going to let everyone be surprised.”
“I do not get to indulge in such theatre very often,” Celestia murmured. “It would be remiss of me not to seize such an opportunity.”
“Didja hear that, Dashie?” Pinkie Pie’s voice broke the spell cast by Celestia’s words. “Princess Celestia’s a prankster, too!”
“Uh...yeah.” Rainbow Dash looked ever so faintly panicked, as if she expected Pinkie to immediately drag her into a prank war with the goddess of the sun and the ruler of all Equestria. Celestia favored her with a reassuring smile, then surveyed the rest of Twilight’s friends.
“And I would like to extend my personal gratitude to all of you as well, for your support of my sister and of Twilight. Friendship is truly tested by change, and I can think of no greater changes than the ones that have brought us here.” She tapped her hoof lightly on the balcony in emphasis.
“Well, shoot,” Applejack said. “It doesn’t matter what titles anypony uses, Twilight’s still Twilight, and she’s still our friend. And o’ course she’s got herself a good sweetheart, princess or not.” Then the earth pony’s eyes flew wide as she realized what she’d said. “Er, I mean,” she spluttered, instantly flustered.
Luna laughed, soft and sweet. “I know what you mean, Applejack. Thank you.”
Celestia chuckled as well, a rich, throaty sound that hinted at the power held in her voice. Though no match to Luna’s, it still held the echoes of millennia spent controlling a court of fractious ponies. “Well, I shall let you make your preparations, and expect you in Canterlot this evening.”
“Of course, Princess!” Twilight’s voice was cheerful but still tinged with a trace of shyness, still not quite used to the public acknowledgement of her relationship with Luna. Celestia gave them one last nod before stepping to the edge of the balcony and spreading her wings. It wasn’t strictly necessary to put any distance between herself and the others before teleporting, but it was rude and unbecoming of a princess to simply vanish.
A few beats her wings carried her away from the balcony, and she reached out for the palace. Any place that had once felt the sun’s warmth and light, even briefly, belonged in some small part to her, a connection that could never be impugned or severed. Even with Twilight in charge of the sun, she was still herself, and so it was a part of her. Sunlight touched sunlight, and she appeared in her bedroom with a blaze of remembered radiance.
There was a pony outside of her door. There always was, in the morning. Over centuries necessity became habit, habit became custom, custom became law. Tenebrous Aurora held the conspicuously undernamed post of Dawn Aide, and was there at sunrise every morning to manage Celestia’s schedule and ensure any of her whims or wishes were seen to with minimal disruption. It was a post he had inherited only recently, but he shared the same brisk efficiency as his predecessor, and his predecessor’s predecessor, and on in an uninterrupted chain going back over twelve hundred years.
It was so mundane and familiar a thing that it seemed almost comical compared to the profound shift in the world that had come with the dawn. Or her world, at least. She had often had to gently remind ponies that no matter how profound their personal problems seemed the world went on, but it was rare she had to remind herself. Celestia took a breath and stepped through the door.
“Good morning, Your Majesty,” Tenebrous said brightly, smiling up at her from behind an exquisitely waxed moustache. “Dawn was different this morning. Trying something new?”
“There was something new about it, yes,” Celestia murmured, but Tenebrous was only half listening.
“It’s always good to try new things! But I’m afraid most of what I have today isn’t particularly fresh.” He glanced over at the clipboard that bobbed along beside him, glowing faintly with the same cream color as his horn. “The gryphon ambassador’s been delayed again, but they should stop having weather issues once they actually enter Equestrian territory.” A roll of his eyes showed what he thought about species that didn’t control the clouds and wind inside their territory. “There are three trade agreements that need your appraisal and signature, but since they’re just renewals that won’t take much time. Your meeting with the Canterlot Advisory Committee is scheduled to run most of the morning, starting an hour from now, but that can be cut short if there’s more pressing business.”
He looked over to her, as if expecting her to suggest such business. And in the past, she had; herding the aristocracy was a subtle balance of granting them some importance while denying them more of the same. But this time, Celestia let the silence stretch out a full three seconds before asking a question. “How is your wife, Tenebrous?”
His ears flicked nervously. Though he had submitted his need for eventual leave through the proper channels, he had never discussed his family directly with Celestia, so Tenebrous had no idea how to react to the sudden, personal question. “The doctors say she’s close,” he said after a moment. “It might be another few days or even a week, but there’s no real telling. With any luck it will be after the ambassador arrives so -”
“Tenebrous,” she interrupted him, and his mouth shut with an almost audible click. “Tenny,” she said gently, using a nickname that only three ponies had ever used for him, and certainly not in her hearing. “There will be other ambassadors. I will be here tomorrow, next week, next year. But the birth of your first foal is something that happens only once in the whole history of the world. Go home. Skyshine can fill in until everything is settled.”
Love and fear, gratitude and anxiety flickered over his face before he bowed to her, a deep and heartfelt genuflection. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”
“It is a princess’ duty to serve her people,” Celestia demurred, and Tenebrous looked up at her again uncertainly. She made a brief shooing gesture with her forehoof and smiled. “I’ll be fine.” She plucked the clipboard from his grasp, and he bobbed his head to her again and backed out of the room.
She gave him a minute to escape the royal wing of the palace, riffling through the excruciatingly precise writing demarcating her planned schedule. Rather than just the general points Tenebrous had mentioned, it was such a meticulous, minute-by-minute deconstruction of her day that it would make Twilight proud. There was even dead space for the unexpected, inked in neatly between appointments.
She shook her head ever so slightly at the clipboard before letting it vanish in a burst of light; the carefully constructed schedule would be completely invalid before the end of the day. She stepped out of her vestibule and two guards fell in on either side of her, their hoofsteps in time with each other if not with her. “Sergeant Cloudcover,” she said. “Find Skyshine and tell her I need her to fill in for Tenebrous Aurora.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The pegasus saluted and flexed his wings, speeding off above the polished marble floor. The other guard flicked his ears forward, focused ahead as if by sheer concentration he could prevent her from sending him off on an errand as well, and so leave her vulnerable. In truth the guards did more to safeguard her schedule than her; she rather enjoyed the occasional rogue reporter or brave supplicant, but it would be all too easy to spend all her time with individuals and neglect the actual rule of Equestria.
Her hooves clicked on the polished marble as she attended to just that. Celestia could not make all the decisions necessary to keep all the pieces of Equestrian government operating as expected, and she didn’t even wish to try. While the Canterlot Advisory Committee was the nominal governing board, they were not the only ponies that made important decisions.
She took an abrupt turn away from the glittering main hall and down a more modest corridor, all carpeted floor and dark wood paneling. The high ceilings swallowed what little sound there was, giving it an air of being separated and secluded even though it was not far from the throne room itself. The doors to modest offices had discreet lettering, blackened bronze on mahogany, declaring which department they belonged to.
She stopped at one titled Equestrian Department of Trade and Industry, shedding her guard as she slipped inside. The bleary-eyed, half-asleep earth pony behind the desk looked up irritably before instantly dropping into a cramped and clumsy bow as he saw who it was. “Your Majesty!”
“Hello, Cypress.” Celestia crossed to the desk, looking over the scattered paperwork. “I’m just here to see to those trade agreements.”
“Er, of course, Your Majesty.” Cypress began desperately searching through stacks of papers and rolled papyrus. “I, er, just wasn’t expecting you this early in the morning.”
That was a polite lie. He wasn’t expecting her at all; the clerks usually passed paperwork that needed her approval off to messengers and never saw her at all. Nevertheless every law and proclamation to do with trade or industry passed through his hooves.
“I thought I should simply take care of them this morning, instead,” she told him casually. “I may not get a chance this afternoon.”
Cypress froze in the act of putting the appropriate papers in front of Celestia, hoof outstretched, before sliding over an inkpot and quill. “I see, Your Majesty.”
He said nothing else, and neither did Celestia as she scribed her signature across the bottom of each of the documents. “That’s all I needed,” she told him with a dazzling smile. “Good day, Cypress.”
“And to you, Your Majesty.” The earth pony nearly stuttered under her gaze, relaxing only when she was back out the door. It would not be long before the brief hiccup of panic that she’d given him turned into full-fledged rumor. She did feel guilty for scaring him so, but it was the only way she could disrupt his habitual work. Like Tenebrous, Cypress was an extraordinarily efficient cog, but he was not particularly flexible.
“Sergeant Willowwood?” She said sweetly, and her remaining guard looked at her warily.
“Yes ma’am?” He didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic, but he knew her better than most.
“We’re headed for the archives. Could you make sure Cloudcover and Skyshine don’t get lost looking for us?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Willowwood nodded to her and trotted back toward the marble hall. Celestia knew exactly where the ponies in question were, and when they’d catch up to her, so she was in no hurry as she headed in the opposite direction, toward the core of Canterlot Castle.
The castle was, on one hoof, very simply laid out, with a single main hall and just a few corridors branching off of it, from which every part of the castle could be reached. And it was, on the other hoof, a veritable maze outside that main path, in the unseen hive where guards and functionaries and servants made the castle run. But Celestia had designed that maze, and lived in it for a thousand years, so she had no trouble at all picking her way through to the massive doors of the Canterlot Archives.
She breezed sunnily through into the stacks, and an older, blue-maned mare appeared in front of her with speed commendable for a unicorn without the ability to teleport. “Princess Celestia!” The librarian bowed hastily. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m just here on a minor issue, Chrysoberyl,” Celestia said soothingly. “Twilight Sparkle will be arriving this afternoon,” she began, and watched Chrysoberyl’s eyes widen in something between horror and apprehension. “And I think you’d be well-served on having all the books on Equestrian law and court etiquette available for her.”
“Yes, Your Highness!” Her eyes narrowed to speculative determination. Twilight was notoriously rapacious when it came to libraries, and Celestia had received letter after politely worded letter from the library staff protesting Twilight’s particular brand of enthusiasm. Despite that, the elder librarian was more familiar with the unicorn than any of the actual court, and had a good idea what that combination of topics implied. “Are there any other subjects I should have indexed?”
“Oh, I trust your judgement,” Celestia reassured her. Chrysoberyl beamed happily at the compliment, bowed again, and headed off to find her compatriots. In the brief quiet, Celestia paused a moment, considering the rows of bound paper and rich scent of aged papyrus. For all the accumulated knowledge, there was very little to anticipate what would unfold that afternoon. She could feel the building weight of the event, like distant thunder or the first scattered pebbles of a landslide.
She lingered long enough for wayward guards to catch up to her, followed by a somewhat winded Skyshine. The pegasus mare bowed to Celestia while she caught her breath. “How may I serve, Your Highness?”
Celesta summoned a clipboard in a brief flare of light, complete with a pectoral harness to keep in place, and slid it over Skyshine’s neck. “Tenebrous is home with his wife, so I’ll need to borrow you for a short time.”
“Er, yes, Your Highness.” Skyshine straightened and looked at the clipboard, leafing through the pages. “Marble Stripes can step in as Dusk Aide and - er, this schedule only covers up to noon.”
“I need you to remain as Dusk Aide, Skyshine,” Celestia said firmly, and the pegasus looked up with more than a hint of rebellion in her sunshine-gold eyes. The post was nominally a mirror to the Dawn Aide, but without Luna in her proper role it had decayed to at best a joke, and at worst a punishment, meant as an empty post for ponies too important to ignore but too incompetent to trust. It didn’t suit Skyshine at all, and Luna’s refusal to retake her post after the interregnum had hit her hard. To deny her even a temporary post as something else was cruel from any perspective.
“Trust me.” Some of Celestia’s regret at the bitter necessity bled into her quiet plea, and Skyshine drew a breath, protests fading.
“Yes, Your Highness.” She glanced down at her clipboard again, suddenly brisk. “Well, we’ll need to hurry so we aren’t late for your meeting with the CAC.”
“Then by all means, let us be off,” Celestia murmured.
Skyshine gave her a brief, suspicious glance before falling into step beside her. “Lady Spessartine has requested yet another hearing on Governor Kumquat’s expansion allotment. Lord Glimmerthread has raised concerns about beginning trade with Draconia and...” The sigh was not audible, but implied by Skyshine’s tone. “The Right Honorable Duke of Canterbury is petitioning to have ‘those powers solely retained by the Lunar Throne reviewed and released for distribution among the ponies of Equestria.’”
“Well, that should certainly be interesting,” Celestia said mildly. The only surprise was, perhaps, that the Duke was so brazen about it. But then, the empty Lunar Throne was itself rather unsubtle. Celestia would have preferred to see Luna on that throne from the moment she had returned, but it would have been a mistake to force the issue.
Skyshine’s mouth worked, soundlessly, but she refrained from an actual reply. Silence reigned as they walked down the hall, hooves muffled by the thick carpet. The palace never really slept, but as they walked the intermittent trickle of ponies rose to a steady stream. With dawn past, the machinery of Equestria’s government began to arrange itself around the mainspring of Celestia’s presence.
Ponies bowed as she went by and she distributed regal nods in return. Celestia had on occasion tried to break her subjects of that habit, but the very nature of her presence made it a lost cause. The merest whisper of her divine presence was enough to send many ponies to their knees, so she had settled for simply acknowledging it without encouraging them. The stream of guards, functionaries, and workers parted around her until she reached the door to the main conference chamber.
The nobles filling a third of the seats rose as she entered. For the most part she avoided the imbroglio of upper-court politics, but even those who felt wronged by her didn’t cross into open disrespect. Celestia took her place in the middle of the horseshoe of chairs, the guards flanking the royal box and Skyshine taking her own seat just below Celestia’s dais.
“Please be seated,” she said, the chamber filled with the rustle and scrape of ponies obeying her invitation. She gave Skyshine a nod, and the pegasus flipped through the papers on her clipboard.
“The twelve hundred and eighth Advisory Committee, hearing forty-seven, is now in session. The Throne first recognizes Lady Spessartine.” Skyshine stumbled briefly over the formula, but she did a commendable job for someone who had never actually performed the duty before. “You may now take the floor.”
Spessartine trotted out to the podium in front of Celestia’s dais, polished gems glinting from where they were twined in her vivid, red-orange mane. She bowed to Celestia, brushed a nonexistent wrinkle out of her grey business suit, and began speaking. “Thank you for hearing me. As we all know...”
The Canterlot Advisory Committee never used five words where ten would do, so the introduction to Spessartine’s argument alone chipped steadily away at the time reserved for the hearing. When she finally reached the content of her argument, it was relatively simple: she was jealous of Governor Kumquat. He was receiving money from the Crown, and Spessartine wasn’t.
Her argument wasn’t entirely invalid. The crown was showing blatant favoritism by providing one newly-founded town with funds and not another, even if there was a whole host of reasons behind it. Over the centuries Celestia had taken to using the lightest touch possible, for without Luna to balance her it was too terribly easy to deprive her ponies of choice. It was best if Celestia could guide them without ordering, promising, or demanding anything.
“Lady Spessartine, you are absolutely right,” Celestia told her. “Paddock does deserve the appropriate allotment of funds. I’m afraid the budget is fully spoken for at the moment...” She paused a moment, giving Spessartine’s indignation enough time to start, but not enough to fully develop. “However,” she continued, and the earth pony’s gaze locked on her.
“Historically, Draconia has been a significant importer of gemstones. If trade relations are established with them without any undue delay, some small tariffs on the trade of such could easily supply the funds.” Spessartine’s eyes flickered with greed, suspicion, and resentment, in order, as Celestia spoke. “But it may be easier to forego the tariffs as I believe Paddock would be a major supplier of those gemstones.”
Celestia needed only half an ear and half an eye to play the council and steer them into doing what was best for Equestria, and themselves. The minutiae of tax levies, trade agreements, declarations of intent, and general bickering weren’t particularly interesting, especially since Celestia had been playing the game for millennia. What concerned her the most was leaving Luna and Twilight with as compliant a nobility as possible. The moment Luna took the throne there would be ten thousand ponies asking a hundred thousand favors; nothing she did could stop that. But she could try and blunt the more poisonous toadying that always sprang up wherever there was power.
It was doubly important to Celestia to leave a clean house for Luna, for there was still poison lingering between them. If it were simply a matter of Luna hating or vilifying her, she would have addressed it long before. She was willing to bear any consequences that fell on her own shoulders. But to confess how much of the past few centuries were spent in machination, to put Twilight in that place at that time, would test the bonds between those two. Ruling Equestria was easy; talking to her sister was hard.
It was not a question of whether she would broach the subject, but when. She knew the experience of rulership would strengthen them both, but that experience could become soured if she waited until afterward. On the other hoof, to tell them before would make it more difficult for them both, especially since she would not be there as a target of their discontent. She had been wrestling with the issue for some time, and she fought with it still as she absently fenced words with the committee. It was not a decision she could put off for very much longer.
“...and do what Princess Luna can’t,” said Sir Gloaming, Duke of Canterbury.
“I think you will find my sister is quite capable of ruling,” Celestia said. Her voice was as calm as ever, but the precise timbre made Gloaming rock backward in his seat as if he had been struck. “However, she has indeed been lax in her duties. I have spoken with her about it and she will be addressing it this afternoon. I trust she will be able to satisfy you on all those points.”
A low susurration rippled through the chamber, and Skyshine’s head snapped around as she stared at her ruler. Celestia, in turn, offered her a brief, conspiratorial smile. “Is there any other business?” She asked into the shocked murmuring, and when there was no immediate answer she waved her hoof at Skyshine.
“This forty-seventh hearing of the the twelve hundred and eighth Advisory Committee is now ended,” the pegasus proclaimed hastily, notarizing her papers with a few quick scribblings and followed Celestia back out the door. “Your Highness?” She ventured. “I didn’t know that Princess Luna - I mean, she didn’t tell me...”
“I know.” Celestia lifted her head, looking at the stained glass set high in the palace walls. “Luna never did pay much heed to the court machine. She had far more important things to be doing when she was at my side, and I at hers. But your task is not entirely hopeless. Twilight Sparkle will be coming with her and she, I believe, will be able to serve as intermediary. She is...quite fond of organization.”
Skyshine blanched, flexing her wings nervously. “Twilight Sparkle, Your Highness? The Element of Magic?” There was a particular note of dread in her voice, one that all the functionaries of Canterlot reserved for Twilight alone.
“Oh dear,” Celestia said, amusement dancing in her eyes. “Surely she’s not as fearsome as all that.”
“Er, of course not,” Skyshine said hastily. “Your Highness.”
Celestia raised an eyebrow at Skyshine. “Well,” she said lightly. “I suppose we had best accomplish what we can before Miss Sparkle brings doom upon us all.”
Skyshine blushed and ducked her head to glance at the clipboard. “Actually,” she said, consulting the timetable. “It’s time for lunch. The meeting ran late...” The pegasus winced as her stomach growled agreement.
“It wouldn’t do to skip a meal,” Celestia agreed. “Have them prepare the east dining room for me, would you?”
“Yes, Your Highness.” The pegasus ducked her head and fled gratefully, spreading her wings and darting through the high halls. Celestia followed at a more sedate pace, winding through the bright marble corridors and passing near the great hall. There were more petitioners than usual, noble and commoner alike, attracted by the uncertainty she’d sown that morning.
Tenebrous’ absence had rippled out through the palace as the thousand and one little details he normally attended to went unaddressed. Ponies were forced to step out of their normal routines, think, ask, and improvise. With the Royal Archives and the office of trade preoccupied, the more indirect methods of petitioning the Crown were unavailable, so even more ponies were funneled into the audience hall. Luna would not be speaking to an empty and indifferent room.
Celestia continued on to the east dining room, stopping a moment to give her guards a smile. “Thank you,” she told them, earning a pair of slightly bewildered looks.
“You’re welcome, ma’am,” Cloudcover ventured, and she gave them a nod before heading through the doors. They would be gone by the time she finished lunch, their shifts over, and she wanted to at least give them her personal gratitude before she left.
Skyshine appeared only moments after Celestia entered, half out of breath and looking a little ragged. She opened her mouth to report something but Celestia preempted her. “Why don’t you join me for lunch?”
“Er, yes, Your Highness,” Skyshine replied automatically, startled, then glanced at the long table. There was a moment of clearly intimidated horror as she contemplated a meal alone with the ruler of Equestria before she recovered, following Celestia to the table.
There was a brief moment of awkward silence, and again before Skyshine could speak there was an interruption. “Ma’am?” Willowwood peered into the room. “Princess Luna has arrived, along with all the Bearers of the Elements.”
Celestia allowed herself a small smile. She didn’t always get the timing right, but when she did it was gratifying. “Have them join us, if you would.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Willowwood disappeared, and Celestia turned to catch Skyshine gawking.
“While I try not to tread too heavily on my sister’s domain,” Celestia said quietly. “I feel there is something I should tell you before she arrives. She has found herself a very special somepony.”
Skyshine nodded, her eyes wide.
“A fellow goddess.”
Skyshine stared.
“Twilight Sparkle.”
Celestia waited until Skyshine had recovered and the pegasus was a little less wild around the eyes before continuing. “There will be many revelations in these coming days, and not even I can foresee all of them. But I thought it would do you no favors to be caught blind by these.”
“I see,” said Skyshine, though shock still echoed in her voice. It was a testament to her constitution and years of experience that she was able to calm her expression before the door opened again and seven ponies came through. Their laughing chatter broke the quiet presence Celestia had projected, and she smiled to see that even Luna was enjoying the company.
“Please have a seat everypony, Spike.” Celestia waited for them to choose chairs, Luna almost unconsciously seating herself directly across from her sister. “I’m glad you’re here early,” she said. “There are just a few minor things while we eat.” She pointed her hoof at the pegasus seated to her left. “This is Skyshine. She’s the Dusk Aide, so she will be assisting you two.”
“Oh, good!” Twilight beamed eagerly. “I was hoping there would be someone to help me with all this court stuff. There’s a lot of it that just doesn’t make sense.”
“I’ll do my best,” Skyshine said helplessly, looking trapped. “But my duties are usually just ensuring Princess Luna’s needs are met.”
“Don’t worry, darling,” Rarity said in a conspiratorial tone. “You can rely on me. Rarity will guide you unerringly through the dangerous waters of Canterlot Court! She will be your captain, your -”
“We get the point, Rar,’” Applejack interrupted. “But I gotta wonder how you know so all-fired much about the Canterlot Court when you live in Ponyville.”
“Why, it’s a gift!” Rarity’s smile was not entirely convincing.
Luna’s voice cut through the conversation like moonlight through still water. “Skyshine,” she said. “I have been somewhat remiss in my duties of late, I know. But that changes today. It is time for the Lunar throne to take its place once again.”
“Yes, Your Highness.” Skyshine ducked her head to Luna, cautiously hopeful.
Luna left it at that, but it was enough. While Celestia had mastery of words, built over thousands of years, Luna had a mastery of her voice that could quite literally fell mountains, part oceans, and show the truth to the most stubborn pony’s heart. With that instrument, she had told Skyshine more than any dinner conversation could convey.
Voices flowed back in the wake of Luna’s words as the food was served, plate after plate being set forth in front of the ponies. Celestia found she had little appetite, even if she didn’t strictly need to eat. Luna noticed, even if nopony else did, and she lifted her eyebrows at Celestia. The sun goddess declined the challenge, speaking to Fluttershy instead. “Fluttershy.”
“Yes, Princess?” Fluttershy looked up quickly at her name. Even though she was nearly earthbound, her nervousness was profoundly birdlike.
“We discussed it before, but I wanted to make sure you still wanted to take care of Philomena while I’m away.”
“Oh, yes, please!” Fluttershy came instantly to eager attention. “I’d love to!”
“As soon as we’re done here I’ll have someone show you to the aerie. Philomena is looking forward to seeing you again.”
Fluttershy grinned an eager grin, her food forgotten, and Celestia let her eyes travel across the others. In the deep and distant fundament of reality, power thrummed from the bonds between them, friendship and love anchoring the bedrock of the world. Those bonds were what she worked for, one small piece of her purpose. Yet they were also her prison, one she had no choice but to construct.
There was only one alternative to no action at all, and that was to judge. To decide what should be so, and what should not. When Luna was there, it was different. Careful patterns swirled on a stormy sea, subtle manipulation intersecting the brash and the rash. But on her own, no matter how much choice she endeavored to give her ponies, her threads spun outward and outward without end. Single mistakes became scars of unasked-for cause and effect, stretching across the centuries.
And the closer she bound herself, the easier it was to shatter those bonds with a word or a gesture. It was not because they were weak. Friendship and love were more enduring than stone. But doubt and mistrust were destructive, and the possibility that a relationship was in some way not real because of her manipulation could never create anything else. It was destructive not because it was a lie, but because it was a truth.
Lunch wound down with clockwork precision, and Skyshine caught Celestia’s eye. “Your Highness? The schedule stops here.”
“Yes, I’m afraid it does.” Celestia took a breath and stood. “Luna, the decision - the timing - is yours. I will hold court until you are ready.”
“I am ready now.” Luna’s somber expression was broken by the brief flare of a smile. “I have never been much for preparation. How much do they already know?”
“Nothing.” Celestia shook her head. “It was not my place.”
“So they don’t know about...me? Or...me and Luna?” Twilight looked suddenly, faintly panicked.
“The court has not been informed of either your ascendance or your relationship. What individual ponies know depends on what you have told others.”
Luna’s eyes flickered with a dark humor. She knew Celestia, so she understood how direct a challenge that was. “There was a time,” she murmured, “when I was almost infamous for my flings. But this is different. I will not broadcast it if you wish it so, Twilight.”
“What?” Twilight blinked rapidly, her eyes wide. Then they narrowed as she focused her intellect, and slowly, she shook her head. “No. It is...I think it is better that it’s known. Ponies would find out anyway, eventually, so it’s better to start with the truth.”
“So what are we doing, Twi?” Rainbow Dash flexed her wings, ready to move. “I’m not sure we’re exactly court material.”
Twilight looked to Celestia, who merely waited impassively. “Right,” Twilight said after a moment. “Well, I’d like all of you there anyway. I haven’t even told my parents about all this, so I’m...kind of nervous.”
“The court is precisely what we make of it,” Luna suggested with a faint smile. “If Twilight says you belong, you belong.”
“You know, Twilight,” Spike added, sotto voce, “if you needed to write a letter to your mom and dad, I could totally -”
“Maybe later, Spike,” Twilight cut him off with a nervous smile. “One thing at a time.”
By mutual agreement they moved to the door. Celestia’s guards stepped to flank her, while a pair of Luna’s bat-winged lunar guards fell in to accompany the night princess. Skyshine hovered uncertainly, torn between attending Celestia or Luna. Finally she took a position opposite Twilight, on the other side of Luna, and did her best to look confident.
“After this I must have a word with you and Twilight in private,” Celestia said softly, and Luna’s expression turned momentarily to something masked and brittle.
“Of course, my sister,” she said, with a touch more formality than she had used before, and Twilight looked between them, frowning.
They swept into the great audience hall, which was, if not packed wall to wall, at least crowded enough to make movement difficult. Celestia came to a halt by the throne, but did not take a seat. Mutters and whispered comments spread as Luna came to stand on the other side of the throne with Twilight at her side, but they died away when Celestia spoke. “My ponies,” she said. “Before, we welcomed my sister back to Equestria, but today we welcome her back to court. I do not have a speech for you, but only a request that you to listen to her.”
Luna stepped forward. “My beloved subjects,” she said, deliberately echoing the first words she’d spoken upon her return, but this time with sincerity rather than mockery. Her voice carried to all corners of the room, cool and clear. “It is time for me to claim my place once again. I have not held court or fulfilled the duties of my throne since I returned, and while I will not say it was wrong for me to do so, it certainly was not fair.”
She looked slowly from one side of the hall to the other, meeting as many eyes as possible. Some looked back, some blinked, some looked away. “And not just to you, my little ponies. My sister has ruled by herself for a thousand years, faithful and true, shining star and guiding hoof. She has served tirelessly for so long. She has earned a respite.”
“My sister, your Princess Celestia, is taking a sabbatical, and I will be taking her place. I am not my sister; I will not rule the same way. But I will serve Equestria. I will listen, I will answer, I will act.” She gave the silent crowd a smile. “It is true that I have not exercised this power for many years, and that there are many things that I do not know. But I will have the assistance of a very special somepony. My very special somepony.” Luna put careful emphasis on the last sentence. “Twilight Sparkle.”
That caused more than murmurs. Celestia had tried to isolate Twilight from the court as much as possible, but there had always been speculation regarding her ultimate role. None had ever seriously proposed anything close to the truth, so the revelation hit them with physical force. Luna let the words wash back and forth through the hall, then tapped her forehoof on the marble. Silence spread outward like ripples in a pond, and Luna nodded to Twilight.
Twilight stepped forward to skeptical and suspicious looks. Some of them knew her as a student, most of them could identify her as the Bearer of the Element of Magic, but none of them knew her. So Celestia relished the reaction when Twilight met them with a hard and determined gaze. Her mane stirred, shifting in a nonexistent breeze, the colors bleeding into the air as it became ethereal, swirling back along her neck. Her body shimmered in turn, assuming a size close to that of Luna’s.
“Hello, everypony,” she said. Her voice did not cut like Celestia’s or carry like Luna’s, but it filled the room all the same. Her voice held the authority, not of a ruler, but of an expert, backed by the confidence and surety of unshakeable knowledge. “I am Twilight Sparkle. I am not a princess. I am not an alicorn. But I am Luna’s marefriend, and while I am only a unicorn, this morning I brought forth the dawn.” Twilight’s voice trembled with emotion and remembered experience.
“I am not a ruler, but I have studied under Princess Celestia. I am not the sun or the moon, but the spark of divinity has been woken within me, and the powers of the world count me among their number. I do not claim a throne but I will serve Equestria the best that I know how, and I will do it at Luna’s side.”
Luna looked over the hushed crowd with a sudden, fierce grin. “Court will resume in half an hour.” She turned to Skyshine, who was looking only slightly less stunned than the rest of the court. “That should give you the time to put together the list of petitioners.”
“Yes, Your Highness!” Skyshine brightened, turning to survey the court, and Twilight looked at her thoughtfully.
“Spike? Why don’t you help her.” Twilight gave him a smile before he had the chance to protest. “You can be the court herald.”
“Really?” The dragon’s eyes lit up with glee. “All right!” He scampered over to Skyshine, who eyed him speculatively as Celestia, Luna, and Twilight stepped back from the throne.
“That was an excellent speech, Twilight.” Rarity said approvingly. “Maybe you won’t need me for court after all!”
Twilight shook her head, the lustre fading from her mane and the extra height vanishing, leaving her ordinary once again. “I have no idea what I’m doing,” she confessed. “I just told the truth.”
“That may be all you need,” Celestia murmured. “Corporal Windrake, would you show Fluttershy to Philomena’s aerie?”
“Yes ma’am.” Windrake saluted and nodded at Fluttershy. “If you’ll follow me?”
“I’ll go too,” Rainbow Dash said abruptly. “I mean, unless you need me, Twi.”
“You go ahead, Dash. Princess Celestia needs to have a word with Luna and I in private anyway.”
“Ooh, Princess talk.” Pinkie grinned, and Applejack rolled her eyes.
“Come on, Pinkie. Let’s give ‘em a little space.” She led Pinkie and Rarity off toward the passage they’d come from, and Celestia nodded toward an inconspicuous door set in the wall behind the throne.
There were many rooms like it, scattered about the palace, oases of peace and solitude for Celestia and her advisors. The sounds of the court vanished the moment Celestia shut the door, and Twilight sagged slightly in relief. Luna, though, knew what had to come next, and she braced herself expectantly. “I am ready, sister.”
“Ready for what?” Twilight looked at them curiously, a trace of apprehension coloring her voice.
“Handing over Equestria is somewhat more than words, or sitting on a throne,” Celestia told her. “Open your senses, and watch.”
She felt the sudden blaze of Twilight’s regard, and so closed her own eyes, reaching outward. From far, from the borders of Equestria, from the vault of the sky to the roots of mountains, Celestia’s presence rolled inward. She gathered up the kingdom, every last blade of grass and drop of rain, every mare, foal and stallion, every fountain of joy and every stab of sorrow, and held it out to Luna.
The night princess took it, staggering as the yoke of Equestria came down upon her. And in that moment, Twilight did what Celestia had half-hoped, half-feared she would do. The kingdom had always been meant for two; two could shoulder it. As Luna struggled under the sudden burden Twilight joined her, pouring themselves into the heart of Equestria.
In flash and silent thunder the land’s magic swept back outward, washing against the borders in a foaming, crashing wave. Twilight wasn’t an alicorn, wasn’t a princess, but she was part of Equestria all the same, and it was part of her. Celestia could only barely feel the changes herself, lightheaded and disoriented from the world shifting under her hooves. She felt numb rather than exultant, unable to savor the victory.
Twilight always chose to say yes. It was not pride, or arrogance, or recklessness, but the genuine desire to help and do good, and no matter how difficult the task that Celestia had, she was there. Even though Twilight had built herself into a better pony than Celestia had ever dared to wish, it was still painfully unfair. That she was so eager to be about it only made it feel more terribly dishonest.
Celestia recovered first, waiting for the other two to struggle through the sudden, ineffable weight of land and sky. Luna inhaled deeply, straightening and planting all four hooves firmly against the carpeted floor. Only then did her eyes focus, meeting Celestia’s in mutual regretful understanding of what had happened.
Luna turned to Twilight, who was standing splay-legged and bleary-eyed, blind to the world, and pulled her into a close embrace. Twilight shivered, leaning into Luna, tremors of ethereal light flickering through her mane as she struggled to acclimate to the burden. Finally she sighed and looked up at Luna and, surprisingly, grinned. “Wow. I knew Equestria had magic, but I hadn’t imagined anything like this. How could I not have noticed it before?”
“It’s normally much more subtle,” Luna replied, smiling back. “In fact I doubt anyone besides us three noticed anything.”
“Equestria reflects those who rule it,” Celestia added, her voice sounding odd even to herself. “And I can think of no better ponies to fill that role.”
“But I’m not a princess!” Twilight protested. “I can’t rule Equestria!”
“You won’t have to sit on a throne with me,” Luna said, dipping her head down to plant a soothing kiss on Twilight’s muzzle. “What Celestia means is that who you are, what you are, will influence the kingdom. You don’t need to do more than help me as you would have anyway.”
“Now that I can handle.” Twilight looked instantly more cheerful, which made Celestia feel even more distant. She didn’t want to ruin the mood, but she had become aware she’d made a decision the moment the two of them had taken up the harness of Equestria.
“Before I go,” she said tiredly. “There is something I must tell you both.”
“Yes, Princess?” Both of them looked at her with concern, though Celestia suspected that concern sprang from two different sources. Or perhaps Celestia was seeing her own self-recrimination reflected in her sister’s expression.
“When I said I had not expected Twilight’s ascension, I was not telling you the truth.” Celestia took a seat on one of the divans. No emergency of state had ever made her feel so weary as confessing to the two of them. “I had been grooming her for that role from the moment she hatched Spike.”
Twilight stared, blankly, and Luna said nothing, but her mane roiled like a thundercloud. “You weren’t the only one, either, Twilight. The ponies who have the potential are few and far between and, until you, each of them chose a different path.” Celestia took a breath. That was the easy part.
“And each of you I raised to be a companion for Luna. Friend, sister, or lover, I tried to give you - give them - what was needed to understand and to love. Love you.” She shifted her gaze to Luna, who was still silent, but her lips were compressed and lightning flashed silently in her mane. “I started this nearly a thousand years ago. I had failed you, and I realized - far too late - that I could never be what you needed.”
“We are not some pawn in your schemes, Celestia,” Luna growled like frustrated thunder, her eyes flashing. “You go too far.”
“Yes,” Celestia agreed with a sigh. “I do. I cannot ask your forgiveness, only your understanding. It was the only choice I had.”
“So...none of this with Luna is real?” Twilight’s voice was incredibly small, with a plaintive note that pierced through Celestia’s heart.
“No.” It came out louder than Celestia had intended, and she repeated herself more quietly. “No, Twilight, every choice, every victory has been your own. Everything you have built has been by your own hooves. Yes, I have showed you paths and given you challenges, but it was you who trod those paths and faced those challenges.”
She looked from one pony to the other, the two of them wearing matching expressions of betrayal, one colored by anger and the other by anguish. “I would trade the world to keep from causing you this pain, but the only thing within my power is to decide when to tell you.”
She rose to her hooves, bowing her head. “I wish I could bear this burden, but I cannot, and the only way to be rid of it is to tell you.” She found it easy to guide all the foremost nobles in Equestria, but in a room with only two ponies eloquence failed her. “I wish we had come here by a different route, one that did not hurt all of us. Yet we did not, and we must all face what I have done.” Celestia let out a slow breath. “But not today. It may be base cowardice, but I cannot face this now, and I do not intend to. Perhaps when I return...but until then I leave Equestria in your hooves.” Her horn lit, filling the room with a brilliant glow, and she was gone.
Twilight blinked at empty space, shaken and reeling from the avalanche of the unexpected. Equestria’s heart beating under her hooves and in the back of her mind was enough to shake her world, but Celestia’s confession seemed to have torn out a piece of it. The room spun dizzyingly, pieces of it seeming to fade, eaten by the holes that suddenly yawned in her mind.
From a great distance she heard the sound of thunder and a jagged bolt of lightning arced across her vision. She flinched backward, shaking her head free of the fog that had enwrapped it, because she knew that tone and timbre of angry storm. It was Luna in a rage.
“She dares.” Luna growled. “She dares.” Her mane and tail faded into a boiling thundercloud, and in the flashes of lightning her pupils reflected as pointed slits. Twilight swallowed, contemplating the wrathful goddess, feeling only hollowness where once there was surety. Part of her agreed with Luna’s anger, a long succession of memory tainted and suborned by Celestia’s words, but there was still a small core of faith in the princess she had followed for so long.
“Luna,” Twilight pleaded, though her voice came out far less certain than she intended. “I’m sure she had reasons -”
“Yes.” It came out a hiss. “She always has a reason. That is what is so damning. Good actions never need a reason. It is only foul deeds that need them.”
“I don’t...I don’t think Princess Celestia is like that,” Twilight said miserably. It felt like a betrayal to take either side, her obligations muddled and uncertain. She didn’t know how to either soothe Luna or defend Celestia, let alone both at once, and the revelations of the prior minutes still rung through her in a rising sour note. She could feel it filtering through her and out into Equestria, drawing another set of traces through the harness of anxiety she wore.
Luna swung to look at her, staring into Twilight’s eyes, and all at once she seemed to collapse in on herself. The angry cloud vanished, the looming anger evaporated, her head drooped, and her eyes closed. “No,” Luna said in a small voice, “she isn’t. Only I have been.”
“That’s not what I meant at all!” Twilight slipped her muzzle under Luna’s, lifting the alicorn’s head with her own. “It’s just...a hard situation. We’ll get through it though, I’m sure we will.”
“I suppose,” Luna said wearily. “But what value have I, have any of us, if all we are consists of pawns on her board?”
Twilight had no ready answer for that, though she felt the question take up residence in part of the hole ripped in her world. Instead she gave Luna gentle nuzzle and a soft kiss . “No matter what Celestia has done, I still feel the same about you.”
Luna’s eyes finally opened and she gave Twilight a soft smile. “I’m glad.”
“And,” Twilight continued, “we still have to go back to the court, and do...um. All that court stuff.”
Luna drew in a breath, straightening up and drawing herself together. “You’re right,” she said. “I can throw a royal tantrum later.” She pushed aside all the confused welter of emotions, focusing on her role as ruler of Equestria. It wasn’t simply the responsibility to make decisions and manage her subjects, but also to spread the benefits of her role and power as goddess to the nature of Equestria itself.
It was not a physical or magical weight, but one of ideas and ideology, the home of thousands of ponies wrought into a unique soul. There was no thing, no experience to compare, and even after a millennium the harness of Equestria was familiar, if rather stiff from disuse. It chafed at the edges of her thoughts as she tried to summon the will to walk back out the door.
Then she felt Twilight’s neck against her own and the barrier was not so great as before. Luna leaned briefly on the smaller pony, drawing strength from the embrace, and gave Twilight a faint, though genuine, smile. “Thank you.” She dipped her head and gave Twilight a brief kiss, offering her a grin at the resulting blush. “I think I’m ready now.”
“What should I do?” Twilight looked as uncertain as Luna felt, so the alicorn gave her a reassuring smile.
“Just look confident. Court usually is not particularly exciting. Though,” she admitted, “I admit I am not familiar with all the modern laws. I don’t expect I’ll need it for most of the decisions brought to the court, but if it’s brought up...”
“I’ll be ready.” Twilight nodded decisively. “I’ve gone through most of the modern law treatises. And we have the entire Archive available if I need to look something up. In fact, maybe I should have them send the references over. Lavender’s Lexicon of Law would be the first, and maybe -” She cut off with a sheepish look. “Well, maybe I’ll wait until later.”
Luna only then realized her look of amused affection, and let it flow into a soft laugh. “I think we’ll be fine. There are certain formalities to attend to first.” Her Night Guards had reaffirmed their oaths to her in a quiet ceremony soon after she had returned, even before she’d regained the first meager morsels of her divinity. She’d resisted anything more at the time, so she was only passingly familiar with the bulk of the royal guards and they with her, but since she was finally taking the throne it was necessary to get their oaths.
She opened the door, striding out as confidently as she could toward the waiting court. Skyshine had been busy in their absence; where once had been a confused crowd were neat rows of ponies, and while the room wasn’t silent, the conversation was muted and respectful. The pegasus herself was bent over a clipboard with Spike, the two of them muttering at each other.
Spike always gave her brief pause when she looked at him with the eyes of a goddess, because he was so sharply divided. Every pony had layers of hopes and dreams, fantasy and yearning layered deep within them. Every one had entire worlds within them.
Spike had two. His vague daydreams and ponderings, half-formed hopes and flights of fancy formed the usual haze, but anything involving Twilight was sharp and clear. He had two pillars; hopes winding close around her, and fears clamped tight around her absence. That closeness pricked her with both sympathy and a vague sense of jealousy, for he was as closely entwined with Twilight as Luna would ever be. And she knew what it would be like to lose her.
The two of them looked up as Luna and Twilight approached; Skyshine had somehow managed to procure a suit for the dragon in the few minutes they’d been away. “I’m ready, Twilight! Er, and Luna. Er, Princess Luna.” Spike corrected himself twice, looking nervous under his officious headgear.
“Very good, Spike,” Luna told him, setting aside his peculiar destiny. “I’ll need you in a moment. Skyshine, call in the royal guard. I need to take their oaths.”
“Yes, Your Highness.” Skyshine bobbed a bow, wide-eyed, and trotted off to have a brief conference with one of the guards already present in the room. Luna watched, settling herself gingerly in the large throne and surveying the hall. She didn’t quite have ‘Tia’s peerless memory, and she wasn’t as familiar with the palace staff as she should have been, so she didn’t actually recognize the stallions and mares on duty throughout the audience chamber. It was a deficiency she planned to correct, one she needed to address as the rulership of Equestria settled into her bones.
Twilight settled in next to her, in a small upholstered divan that had been placed next to the throne, and Luna smiled wryly. She had resented Skyshine being imposed upon her at first, but she could not deny that Celestia had selected well. For all her experience, Luna’s first few days assuming the mantle of ruler could be disastrous without someone like her smoothing the way, and trusting Skyshine was the first step in repaying the unearned loyalty.
“Do you recognize any of these ponies?” Luna murmured to Twilight, surveying the rows of petitioners lined up in the hall. She had no intention of playing whatever power games might have been negotiated between the various nobles of Canterlot, but she keenly felt a lack of the knowledge any ruler should have.
“Huh?” Twilight blinked, dragged out of her own thoughts. Luna winced. From her wilted ears and downcast muzzle, it was clear to see what occupied Twilight so. There was still rage and despair skittering around the back of her own mind, but she’d had far longer to practice hiding it and putting it aside.
“Hold on until tonight, Twilight,” Luna told her. “After court is over, we can...” She made a vague gesture with a forehoof. “Until then I’ll need your help.”
“Of course.” Twilight gave a brief, convulsive nod, sitting up straighter on her divan. She focused forward, studying the hall and its occupants. But she had no choice morsels of either fact or gossip for Luna, so as the guard began to arrive, she offered a helpless shrug.
The captain of the guard braced to attention in front of the throne, and behind him the rest of the guards, all of whom looked alike thanks to the magic in their armor, lined up in rows. They assembled, rank upon rank, to the point where Luna wondered how she’d missed a small army secreted throughout the Canterlot palace.
When the last of the armored ponies had taken their places, she spoke. “When you took your oaths to the alicorn sitting upon this throne, it was not to me that you pledged. When I returned, I did not take those oaths, for I was not ready to earn them. Now I am.”
She loosed her godhood, letting it flow outward, through the room and through her bond with the kingdom itself. “I pledge my life, my loyalty, and my sacred honor to Equestria, to her lands and her inhabitants. I will serve and protect, guide and guard, lead and love all who dwell therein.” The air and earth trembled, shivering from the vault of the sky to the roots of the mountains as she reached into distant memories of the past. “I pledge to nurture the dreams of all who seek and strive and hope, those who yearn to bring the new and the visionary into the world. Under moon and sun, I so swear.”
The captain bowed, kneeling on his forelegs, and the rest of the guard followed suit in a synchronized rustle of wings and clink of armor. “I swear,” he said, his voice ringing out for a moment before it was joined in chorus by the others, “that I will on my honor be faithful to the princess, never cause her harm, and will observe my homage to her against all ponies and without deceit.”
Something that was almost a pure chord shimmered through the air as the exchange of oaths finished, a music more felt than heard as all the tension and power vanished; fulfilled rather than dismissed. “Thank you,” Luna told them, the gratitude that washed through her finding its outlet in her voice, which trembled ever so slightly. Some memories of her time before were still raw, and the acceptance, even welcome, was a profound relief. “You can resume your posts,” she added, and watched most of the guards file back out, some with an obeisance and some without, but she felt no anger or animosity from them.
But as the soldiers left, another stallion arrived, dressed like one of the palace guards but not colored like them. It wasn’t until Twilight made a small, choked noise of panic that Luna finally placed him. The Prince-Consort of the Crystal Kingdom, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza's husband, Shining Armor. She straightened in her throne, casting a glance over at Twilight. “Do you know why he’s here?” She murmured.
“I have no idea!” Twilight replied, quietly frantic.
“Well, it’s your brother,” Luna said soothingly. “I’m sure it’s nothing bad.” She nodded at him, and he stepped up to the throne with a sheepish grin that seemed out of place on someone of his stature.
“I was hoping I could talk to Twily.”
Luna’s muzzle stretched into a sudden gleeful grin, disproportionately amused by Twilight’s nickname. “Well that’s up to...Twily.” She looked over at the unicorn next to her, who was squirming in mortification. “I suppose I can spare you for a few minutes, Twilight.”
Twilight rubbed at her forehead with a hoof and summoned a weak smile. “Well, it has been a while since I got the chance to talk with my BBBFF.”
“Bee-bee-bee-eff-eff?” Luna lifted her eyebrows at Twilight, but it was Shining Armor who responded.
“Big brother best friend forever,” he clarified with a chuckle. “Twily didn’t have many other friends as a foal.”
“Well, I certainly understand how that is,” Luna murmured. “Go ahead, Twilight. I don’t think the court will try and rush the throne in the next few minutes.”
“Thank you,” Shining Armor said, and followed Twilight off to the side of the throne for some semblance of privacy. Luna watched them go, then nodded to Skyshine. She in turn whispered in Spike’s ear, and the dragon stepped forward, raising his hands in proclamation.
“Hear ye, hear ye!” His voice echoed through the hall, surprisingly loud for a dragon so small and unexpectedly authoritative for one so young. There were echoes of Twilight, Celestia, and even Scar in that tone, and it was enough to draw attention. “The Court is now in session! The first petitioners will now approach the throne.”
Luna eyed the well-dressed trio that stepped up to the base of the dais. Her first thought was the rather dark and unhelpful one that Celestia would have known who the ponies were and what they wanted. But she was not Celestia, and had no desire to be. Even in the dim and distant past when she had ruled with her sister, she had acted based on what should be rather than what was. Luna faced them with her head raised and ears perked. With any manner of luck at all it would be something simple.
“The Court recognizes Governor Greengrove, Professor Gandaria, and Lady Marquis Ruby,” Spike called, and Twilight blocked out the sounds of the court, instead regarding her brother. There was part of her that was glad to see him, but there was a far greater part of her that felt utterly crushed under the mounting weight of events. Proclaiming herself to the court was far easier than trying to explain herself to her brother.
“And to think mom and dad chide me for not writing...” Shining Armor shook his head, giving her a familiar grin. “At least I told them when I got engaged!”
“Shiny,” she sighed. “I’m sorry, it’s just been so overwhelming.” She shook her head, feeling more than a little bewildered. She’d found that her godhead did little to help with the chaos and confusion of everyday life; rather, it seemed to contribute, especially with the odd and unbalanced weight of Equestria tugging at her mind. “What are you doing here?”
“State visit,” Shining Armor said gently. “We already finished most of our business with Celestia, and we were planning on heading back in a few days. I hoped we would have time to stop by Ponyville, but since you’re here anyway, surely there’s some time in your schedule for family?”
Twilight winced. There was an undeniable plea in those words, despite his light tone, and it was one he shouldn’t have had to make. “Of course. We’ll come over for dinner at some point, I promise. Or you here? I don’t know which would be best, I’ll have to ask Luna and with the schedule I’m not sure when the court ends and we still have to take care of the night and I have to raise the sun so it’s good I don’t need to sleep much anymore and - “
“Easy, Twily! It’s not an emergency,” Shining Armor chuckled. “Just a dinner, that’s all. Or even a breakfast, since you’re raising the sun now.” He paused and shook his head. “I can’t believe my little sister would be doing...well, all of this. I always knew you’d go far, sis, I just never imagined you’d go all the way off the edge of the map.”
Twilight smiled herself. She had been filled with some formless dread when Shining Armor had asked to talk to her, but he was open, earnest, accepting, and in all the same brother she’d always known. It was a welcome slice of normality after the surreal strangeness of the day, and she felt at least a little more grounded. “Thank you, Shiny. Tell mom and dad we’ll be by, I promise. Or they’ll hear from us, whichever.” She frowned for a moment at her own words. “I need to get organized,” she muttered, half to herself.
“That sounds like my cue to leave,” Shining Armor grinned. “I know better than to stand in the way of Twilight organizing. I also kind of skipped out on some important meeting or another when I heard.” He waved dismissively, then smiled. “It was worth it though. It was good to see you, little sister.” He gathered her up in a tight hug and she giggled, returning it.
“You too, big brother. I’ll see you again soon.” She let him go and watched as he walked off toward one of the many doors, vanishing again into the palace. What turned her back toward the throne was Luna’s voice booming out through the room.
“You dare to try and deceive me?” Luna was glowering down at the trio of earth ponies, but Twilight was relieved to see there were no storm clouds. She was irritated, not truly enraged. Still, Twilight fairly leapt back to her place at Luna’s side, putting a light hoof on Luna’s. The alicorn glanced at her, nodded briefly to show she was still in control, then turned a withering look on the petitioners.
Twilight didn’t recognize them herself; they were simply well-dressed and affronted-looking earth ponies, but through her divine eyes they were closely linked and intertwined. Their souls were not as bright as her friends were, the fires dimmer and duller. There was something about that small detail that made her take notice and pay attention to them beyond what they said.
“You have no desire to bring earth ponies and unicorns to the sky. You want to take it for yourselves.” Twilight blinked, trying to focus on Luna’s words and her own senses at the same time. It wasn’t just a simple division of attention; it was as if she had had two minds or even two bodies. It was an oddly stretched sensation, one she hadn’t felt since she had first learned to use her magic as a filly.
“But, Your Highness!” the Lady Marquis Ruby protested. “Surely having all the airships working together could only benefit Equestria.”
“Under this...proposal,” Luna growled. “They would be working for you.”
“Your Majesty,” Professor Gandaria wheedled, “if I could elaborate - “
“No.” Luna cut him off, then turned her head. “Twilight,” she said. “Does Equestria truly need a more robust and more coordinated airship fleet?”
Twilight blinked again, suddenly aware that every eye in the room had shifted to her. She hadn’t been prepared for the test, but she was up to the challenge. She summoned forth the knowledge of all the books she’d read and discussed in preparation to advise Luna, and strained the facts through the net of her intellect. “The trains go most places in Equestria,” she said. “And pegasi and earth ponies take care of most of the local traffic. However, we do not have a rail line to Draconia, and most high-endurance pegasi are already employed.”
Couched as a lecture, she was almost comfortable speaking in front of so many assembled and judging ponies. “Significant trade with Draconia at this stage would require dedicated cargo airships, and ones that can deal with the non-pegasi-controlled weather beyond the borders of Equestria. We don’t have any. Yet.”
She turned to face Luna fully, preferring to address the answer to her rather than the court. “I’m not sure what the proposal was, but there’s definitely room for a larger fleet. Even if it is only for trade with Draconia.”
“Very well.” Luna broke her princess’ mask for a second to give Twilight a wink before she turned to the petitioners before her. “You wanted to control the skies, and that I will not have. But neither would I crush the spark of your desire. If you wish to do great things you shall have your chance.”
When she spoke again her voice held a kind of a power, not born of magic or divinity but of passion. “We do not have a great fleet of airships. Make one. Invent. Create. Build a fleet to awe even the proudest dragon. Find ponies who share your dream. Rise up and find a future where all of Equestria is richer for your efforts. In this, the crown will support you.”
The banked fires of pony souls guttered, flared, and danced under the breath of Luna’s words. Twilight watched with the same sense of dawning understanding as when magical theory bloomed and flowered into real effects upon the world. She wasn’t sure if it was Luna the pony, Luna the goddess, or Luna the princess that was having such an effect, or whether those three could even be separated, but she had a sudden, intuitive flash of how much more it took to rule than simply making decisions.
“Thank you, Your Majesty.” The Lady Marquis Ruby bowed, her aplomb intact but a slight, unidentifiable hitch in her voice. They withdrew, immediately swarmed by functionaries and courtiers. There would be reams of paperwork, Twilight knew that much from her time in proximity to Celestia, but a Princess’ pledge was never broken.
A motion caught her eye and she spotted her friends on a balcony overseeing the room. Pinkie, of course, was waving energetically, and Twilight imagined how much effort it had taken Rarity and Applejack combined to keep her from shouting out over the crowd. She lifted a hoof to wave back, and to her surprise Luna did too, again abandoning the royal dignity to grin and return Pinkie’s enthusiasm with both hooves.
Twilight’s heart lifted as she watched Luna beam, and she realized that perhaps the princess hadn’t abandoned her dignity at all. There was no diminishment of her presence, no shame or break of decorum. She simply did not regard the court in the same manner that Celestia did, and yet controlled it still, reigning by force of will and personality.
All the burdens of the day seemed a little bit lessened, and Twilight sidled in a little closer to Luna. She wasn’t quite brave enough to do more than that in front of all the proper ponies of the court, but Luna had no such compunctions. When she noticed Twilight’s gesture she scooped her up with an earth pony’s strength and pulled her into an enthusiastic kiss and embrace before releasing her, blushing, to sit on the divan beside the princess.
The display seemed to satisfy Pinkie, who sat back down in her seat with a smug look and to the mutterings of the multitude. Luna ignored them and nodded at Spike. He stared, blinked, then remembered himself and looked at the clipboard Skyshine had left him. “Lady Granite may approach the throne,” he bellowed.
Twilight had spent some time in Celestia’s court, so she was passingly familiar with how the sun princess handled her petitioners. Rarely was an answer simply yes or no. Celestia steered the conversation so that an answer was arrived at by all parties that seemed to be the inevitable conclusion. Luna, too, avoided the simple answer, instead taking the threads of what the petitioner wanted and weaving something new from it.
She could tell the court was unsettled by the abrupt change, but Luna still managed to keep it well in hoof. It wasn’t that any of the ponies would have defied her; she was a princess, even if she wasn’t Celestia. But pony after pony walked away from the throne with, if not satisfaction, at least a changed perspective.
As the hours wore on, the nervous-excited-overwhelmed swirl, both within her and in the court, neither settled nor worsened. Simply sitting and thinking, responding to Luna’s questions, was surprisingly exhausting, but her friends provided support. Throughout the long afternoon there was always at least one of them at the balcony, even as time dragged out while Luna cut through obscuring minutiae or pompadour-bedecked aristocrats droned about their selfish desires.
Eventually, though, the tide of ponies ebbed and Luna rose from the throne. “Court will resume tomorrow evening,” she told the remaining spectators. “The night is my domain, but I recognize I do not share that with most ponies. The compromise will be court at dusk and dawn. I bid you all a good evening.”
Twilight followed Luna back through the door at the back of the chamber, trailed by Spike and Skyshine. The moment it closed behind them Luna seemed to sag, letting out a long breath. “Well, I suppose that could have been worse.”
“I thought it went well!” Twilight countered, glancing back at the other two in hopes of support.
“It’s going to be a lot of work,” Skyshine admitted, “but I’ve been waiting for this for years.” She gave Twilight an almost shy smile. “Is it strange that I’m looking forward to being buried in paperwork?”
“Well, I had fun,” Spike declared, rubbing at his throat. “Though I feel kind of sore after all that.”
“Perhaps it wasn’t so bad,” Luna said, her ears flicking equivocally. “But I have not done that for so long. In truth I spent much of it worrying about which of Tia’s plans I was upsetting.”
Twilight winced. Celestia’s manipulations were a looming specter for both of them, but for Luna the wound was older and deeper. “It really isn’t that way though,” she said. “It’s about what you’re doing now - what we’re doing.”
“I suppose,” Luna said, but didn’t sound entirely convinced. “But at least we’re finished for a while. Do you think the others will join us for dinner?”
“Oh, I’m sure. I don’t know if they can stay all week but at least today - “
“Twilight?”
She stopped in her tracks at the sound of the voice. Ahead of them were all five of her friends, plus Shining Armor and Cadence, and accompanying them were two more very familiar ponies.
“Um,” she said, staring in blank shock. “Luna? I’d like you to meet my parents.”
It always seemed to come back to the palace. That was where her story had begun, and events kept coming back around to it. Even though it was a ruin, even though it was surrounded by hostile forest, ponies and events ended up attracted it. So it seemed only fitting to start there.
Celestia appeared in the middle of the shattered throne room, the remnants of stained glass casting broken shards of color across crumbled stone. The surroundings matched the way she felt; aged, worn, and scarred by ancient mistakes.
And isolated. In the middle of the Everfree Forest, she wasn’t actually in Equestria, and the magic of the land was not the connected lives of all her ponies. Even with the power that had birthed it gone, it had its own life to it, a small pocket of otherness in the middle of her kingdom. Or rather, what used to be her kingdom.
Nearly a millennia of planning had brought her to that point, slow inevitability grinding toward the precipice she’d just stepped over. It was her duty, her purpose, her nature to guide and guard Equestria, and she had done so by ceding it to another. Victory by surrender. She thought Luna would approve of it, if ever they could discuss it without pain.
That victory had left her peculiarly aimless, bereft of the forces that had always driven the princess and the goddess and leaving only the pony that was Celestia to make decisions. And that particular pony had not done much for a very long time. She lifted a hoof, touching the broken throne that had set her on that path centuries ago, then with great deliberation turned her back on it. There was much value to be had from the past, but that past had brought her to this pass with the slow inevitability of causality, and she would rather hope for a better way.
The silence of the ruins was more melancholy than peaceful, centuries of decay pressed against centuries of memory, empty frames where art once hung and ragged grass where gardens grew. The ghosts of long-dead subjects followed her down a roofless corridor, though they were not disapproving memories. Her recriminations were her own, and didn’t need to be projected upon the voiceless dead.
And recriminations there were. The first mistake, her worst mistake, was sharper here even though its edges had been worn by the passage of time. It was not the act of besting what her sister had become, but an earlier, softer failure, one she still couldn’t pinpoint after all this time. The moment she had lost Luna’s heart.
It was not a question of love; that would never change between them. But somewhere, somewhen, Celestia had betrayed the connection between them and left Luna to go down a path that should never have been. It should never have been, yet Celestia treasured where she was, what she had done, far too much to undo it all even if she could. She was glad that she had never been offered the opportunity.
The sound of stone underhoof changed to the muffled crunch of dry grass and fallen twigs as she emerged into the courtyard. Nothing grew inside the great crevasse. No birds sang, no insects buzzed. The forces that had been unleashed so long ago were etched permanently into the stone, a scar on the world that would never heal.
The bridge that Rainbow Dash had rigged in place years ago was still intact, but Celestia crossed the gap with a flick of her wings, instead. Her heart felt heavy enough that such a fragile structure might give way under the weight. She made her way into the forest, picking her way through the underbrush with the unconscious grace only millennia of habit could yield. It was not simply aimless wandering; there was somepony she wanted to talk to.
There was a time that she had thought immortal gods had a monopoly on wisdom, but that had been long ago. In the long years of repairing the world from Discord’s mischief she had found there was far more to the world than any could imagine, mortal or divine. Or at least, any mortal or divine so far. A faint smile hovered at the edges of her muzzle at the thought, for if there was anypony who could discover all there was to be known in the world, it would be Twilight Sparkle. Unfortunately, Celestia couldn’t take advantage of her wisdom just yet.
The animals of the Everfree stayed far away from her. She was as a monster to them - something eldrich and powerful, a dangerous intruder best avoided or appeased. Which, in truth, was not so far from how many of her own subjects treated her.
By contrast, the dwelling in front of her was in harmony with the forest, part of it and not apart from it. Celestia walked under the spreading limbs of the tree, ducking her horn under the mask hanging above the door, and rapped her hoof against the wood.
The door opened to reveal quizzical turquoise eyes peering out from a black-and-white face. “That I get visitors rarely is true, but of all ponies I did not expect to see you.” Zecora stepped back from the doorway, gesturing Celestia inside. “Please be welcome, and make yourself at home. Your heart, I think, makes you tread this forest’s loam.”
“Thank you, Zecora.” Celesta stepped over the threshold, the tip of her horn nearly scraping the roof of Zecora’s home. She didn’t directly address Zecora’s comment, merely nodding to acknowledge the zebra’s insight. “I know we haven’t spoken in a while, but I hope Twilight and her friends have kept you up to date. Especially where Twilight is concerned?”
“The new goddess has visited me, indeed. It is wondrous to see what has grown from that seed.” Zecora gave Celestia a knowing look. “She is the same but has also changed, and it seems it was something you arranged.”
“I am afraid so.” Celesta settled down on the bare floor. No doubt there were many ponies in the court that would be horrified by the sight, but she and Zecora had long discarded any need for that sort of ceremony. “I told them both the truth and then left them in charge of Equestria. I admit that might sound irresponsible, but I believe it was the only way.”
“It sounds as if everything is decided, to me.” Zecora lifted her kettle, positioning it over the fire. “But I suspect that you came here for more than just my tea.”
“As much as I enjoy your tea, no, not just for that.” Celestia bowed her head briefly. “I did not part with them on the best of terms. I cannot say that I would have, or could have, chosen any differently, but that does not mean it hurts any less.”
“It takes a strong pony to lead a nation,” Zecora observed. “That complaint seems beneath your station. I feel for you, I truly do, but this not a problem that is new.”
“This is somewhat unique.” Celestia watched Zecora pour tea. “I have sent ponies to their death or ruin, no matter how difficult it was, no matter how much I loved them. That is necessary, and I accept that. But it has always been for the sake of Equestria, of all the ponies under my care. But I have never before condemned one to immortality for the sake of another.”
“A special complaint that is indeed, and my curiosity I ask you feed. It's not a blessing you've given your student, but she has only done what she thought prudent. It was her choice to take this course; you offered guidance but not force. Though you may mourn what might yet be, it is not your responsibility.”
Celestia accepted the simple clay mug from Zecora, looking down at the rippled surface of the tea within. “That may be true, but I certainly led her down the garden path. And even if I cede responsibility for her fate, what about all the others she will affect? I do not mean if she turns into another Sombra or Nightmare Moon. That I can deal with.” Her voice went flat, hard, and cold as hammered steel on the last two words, and she paused before taking a sip of the tea.
“She is the first new god in thousands of years, and the world is far different these days. Even small mistakes could affect thousands, or millions. And the reason for taking this gamble is to prevent another god from doing the same.” Celestia looked directly into Zecora’s eyes. “We are creating more problems, we gods, and that should not be.”
Zecora frowned, balancing her own mug on the tip of her hoof. “You deeply think before you act, and you always do what you must. Twilight's feats are simply fact, and in her you have placed your trust.” She gestured with her other hoof, a sweeping wave that took in both Celestia and all the lands about them. “She will only make the mistakes she needs, and surely will perform the greatest of deeds. I do not think you doubt Twilight's odds, but rather yourself, or the nature of gods."
“A bit of both,” Celestia admitted. “I was never meant to rule alone, and after a thousand years I know I am somewhat adrift. But over that same thousand years I have seen the world tamed, its great monsters vanquished, and all the tumult we gods so excelled at riding stilled to a quiet murmur. I must wonder if there is a place for us anymore, and if the world would be better served without us. Or if it is that my perspective has changed, and the world not at all.”
“Both of these things may be true, but the world is not just you.” Zecora shook her head at Celestia. “The three pony gods are indeed great, but I will tell you something straight: though I admit that some are frauds, other races have their gods. If it's perspective that you lack, speak with them ere you go back.”
“I think I shall.” Celestia paused thoughtfully, then corrected herself. “I think I must.” She lifted her head, her horn stopping just short of scraping the ceiling, and looked at Zecora speculatively. “I am on neither good terms nor bad with the Zebra gods, and they have no reason to listen to me. But you could ask for me.”
“It is true that I could try, but I don't see why they would reply.” Zecora met Celestia’s gaze, challenging.
“They might ignore Zecora. But She-Who-Walks-Without-Shade, The Suncatcher, The Sirocco...they’ll listen to her. Even if she hasn’t been seen for a long time.”
Zecora was still and silent for a moment, then nodded slowly in response to Celestia’s words. “Because it is not lightly that you ask, I shall put my hoof to the task.”
“Thank you.” Celestia sipped her tea and watched as Zecora stood, crossing to her stand of alchemical ingredients and going to work. Berries were crushed and powders mixed, and Zecora muttered in her native language as she applied the paints to her hide, drawing patterns out of the stripes of her coat.
The result transformed Zecora from a simple shaman and teacher to something altogether older and darker; a warrior-priestess or tribal queen, laden with power, knowledge, and authority. She began to chant in a rolling cadence, the fire flaring brightly and casting sharp shadows on the walls of Zecora’s hut. Celestia could feel the power ripple, like a stone cast into still waters, then rebounding and sweeping back in.
The light and shadow grew stronger, consuming the hut walls with black and white until they were surrounded by a two-tone world, hills and sky and mountains rendered in absolutes. Even Zecora lost her shades and subtleties, leaving Celestia as the only source of color. Out of that colorless land two figures emerged, one composed of utter black and the other of blinding white, invisible where they crossed their own shade and weaving their way toward Celestia and Zecora.
“Who is it that comes here?” The black one spoke first.
“Who is it that walks upon our land?” The white one spoke second.
The monochrome washed through Zecora at their words, lapping at the island of color Celestia maintained. She was in in their realm, and their rules controlled all but the sovereignty she held for herself. They spoke not Equestrian or Zebrican, but a cant more primal than any language, the words of creation itself.
“I am one of the People.” Zecora replied in kind, her usual rhyming lost to the cadence imposed by the realm. “I am She-Who-Walks-Without-Shade. I have ridden the sirocco and I have touched the sun. I belong here.” With each word, color pulsed out from Zecora, ripples of shading that expanded and encircled her to create a small piece of protected reality much like Celestia’s.
“We recognize you, Zecora of the People.” The black one spoke in his turn, and the white followed after.
“But you bring a companion, unasked and unnamed.”
“So we ask, who?”
“Who is it that you bring?”
“She is Celestia,” Zecora replied. “She is the sun.”
With those words, Celestia blazed. With her godhood ignited, light cascaded forth in a thunderous rush of color, contesting the stark absolutes of the Zebra gods’ realm. They responded in kind, dividing the world in half, black on white and white on black. Power roiled at the interface where light met white and color met its absence, coruscating lightnings lashing at the fabric of existence.
“Why are you here?”
“Why have you come?”
Their words cut through the fury of competing power like pointed steel as they circled her, a cautious orbit around her brilliant core. She regarded them, one white, one black, and gave them an answer.
“To ask a question.”
Their silence was as penetrating as their words, stretching out to a single syllable spoken in unison.
“No.”
The claws of their dismissal savaged at the edges of her power, black and white creeping in toward her, but she refused to be moved. “I will not be denied,” she said quietly, muffling the furor of their conflict with a slow wash of her will. “I must have your answers.”
They circled her silently, with Zecora between, the zebra’s face set in grim disapproval. But she said nothing, refusing to take part in the conflict of words. She stood braced, hooves on the ground, defending herself against the clash of powers and the echo of divine speech.
“What are you?” Celestia’s voice rippled outward and the reply came back in overlapping waves.
“We are gods.”
“Black.”
“White.”
“No.” Celestia tapped her hoof lightly against the ground, and it shuddered in reply. “What are you?”
“We are gods.”
“Creators.”
“Speakers of Words.”
The terrain shivered, growing more stark, more real as they defined themselves. Mountains rose, valleys deepened, water flowed, and their outlines sharpened. They glared at her with invisible eyes, moving in surefooted steps through the landscape they’d made.
“What are you?” Celestia repeated, her voice snapping out against them, a solar wind ruffling their manes.
“We are gods.”
“Guides of life.”
“Guards of truth.”
The surroundings shifted abruptly to a flat plain, the mountains vanishing like shadows in the dawn and the hills melting into villages. Thousands of years of zebra history spread out around them, compressed into nine words. They walked among their people now, ghosting through lives and events, constants in the flickering lives of their mortal charges. Celestia’s eyes pierced through the layered tapestry of ages, surveying them before turning the flensing gaze back to the gods.
“What are you?”
“We are gods.”
“The final judge.”
“The last hope.”
“The warrior’s heart.”
“The mother’s song.”
“The black.”
“The white.”
Each declaration reshaped the land, flashing through life and death, war and peace. They made the world shake under the drumbeat of their words, until finally it was a blank, empty plane again. Only the four of them remained, a small circle of color centered between black and white.
“I accept your answers,” Celestia said quietly. “Thank you.”
“Then go.”
“Leave us.”
This time she let herself be carried by the tides, and the colorless world washed away in a rush of color, the firelight returning to Zecora’s hut. Zecora herself remained a two-toned hole in the world, more a presence than a pony. Celestia waited patiently, feeling the echoes of the gods beat faintly through Zecora’s connection.
The cadence marched, eventually, to a halt and the firelight once again began to reflect off Zecora’s coat. She exhaled and favored Celestia with a sour look, dropping down to sit opposite her guest. “They are both now quite upset. I hope this gives me no cause for regret.”
“I do not intend to cause you trouble,” Celestia sighed. “Would that I could discharge my obligations without drawing in others. But they would never have let me into the heart of their power without you.”
“When the world your words define, most questions you will decline,” Zecora said pointedly. “I know you are a deliberate sort, but it seems that danger now you court.”
“Danger to you, and to them,” Celestia agreed. “But not to me or mine. You are a dear friend, Zecora, but you know I must put my ponies first. I have no other choice.”
The zebra blanched back from the heavy leaden weight in Celestia’s voice, but nodded. “Mimi kajua jua.” After Celestia merely smiled in tired acknowledgement, Zecora ventured another question. “Four questions, four replies. Among them did you find your prize?”
“They were all what I wanted.” The goddess of the sun stared, unblinking, into the fire. “We are all of us trapped by our own natures. They have defined themselves as arbiters, drawing the boundaries that, in turn, define all zebras. But there at least are ones such as you who can contest them on their own terms, and change that nature, little by little. Someday, they will have no words left for themselves.”
Zecora shivered. “Just between you and I, is it possible for the gods to die?”
“A god cannot be killed,” Celestia said deliberately. “But I know of some that are dead.”
Zecora met the statement with the narrowed eyes it deserved, but let it pass, knowing that was the best she would get out of Celestia. For her part, the goddess stared meditatively into the flickering light of still-burning logs and considered the self-declared nature of the zebra gods. Her horn lit, emptying kettle and cups of tea long gone cold, tools swirling around them in an herbal orrery as she brewed more.
Her conversation, if such stilted, stylized verbal conflict could be called such, had held little in the way of surprise. The ambiguity and uncertainty held little in the way of answers. But it would take some time to truly digest even the simplest answers to the most profound questions, and Celestia was nothing if not patient.
"While we were discussing things of weight, it has gotten to be quite late. I do not have an extra bed, but you can stay and rest your head."
Celestia looked up and favored Zecora with a smile. “Thank you, but no. Night is an appropriate time to find the next person I want to speak with.” She rose smoothly to her feet, and Zecora eyed her speculatively.
“I do not know whom you go to find, but I wish you luck and a clear mind.”
“Thank you,” Celestia said, warmly and honestly, before stepping out in the Everfree night.
“I’m not mad, Twily,” Twilight Velvet said as they all settled in around the table, which looked far less oversized with twelve of them around it. “I just thought it would be Shiny’s engagement that we’d hear about thirdhoof.”
“Of course we figured that was only a matter of time.” Night Light put in. “Shiny was almost as moonstruck as I was the first time I saw your mother. Er.” He cast a glance at Luna, his expression a mixture of belated realization and mischievous anticipation, making him look for a moment even more youthful than his son.
Luna laughed. It wasn’t just the coltish look or the term he used, but also the elder Twilight’s reaction, the same flattered blush that she’d seen so often on her Twilight. “That is one of my more entertaining roles, yes.” She offered the two of them a smile. “Believe me, it’s gratifying to hear such a fine old phrase.”
Night Light grinned back. “We’ve always been partial to the night ourselves. I remember one particular colt asking Twily if she loved the night so much, why didn’t she marry it. Well...”
“Dad!” Twilight protested, objecting less to the words than to the particular tone of voice.
“Hah, now you have to suffer his terrible sense of humor.” Shining Armor gave Twilight a wicked smile, only to be interrupted by Cadence elbowing him gently in the side.
“You shouldn’t wish that on anyone,” Cadence chided him, though with a twinkle in her eye.
“Hey now, my sense of humor isn’t that bad.”
“It is, dear,” Twilight Velvet said mildly.
“Aw, I like it!” Pinkie called from further down the table, and Night Light raised a hoof in triumph.
“Vindication!”
“Well don’t encourage him!” Twilight laughed, and her father stuck out his tongue.
“Well, now.” Twilight Velvet’s mouth quirked into an impish smile. “If the Element of Laughter thinks our Night Light is funny, who are we to complain?”
“Exactly!” Night Light and Pinkie spoke at once, looked at each other, and dissolved into laughter.
Over the centuries Luna had met the friends and families of lovers in many, many different settings, but this time was different. She had never kept the same distance that Celestia held, but the knowledge that she was immortal and they were not had always flavored her relationships. Twilight was different and therefore so too was her family, but there still seemed something unique about them.
Twilight Velvet and Night Light were mundane in most ways, but between them was the soft, warming glow of harmony, bonds stronger than any magic. Love wrapped them like a heavy cloak, spilling over to all those nearby. It was a small, simple, ordinary sort of power, nothing like the titanic forces gods wielded, but there was something in it that made her feel humbled.
“So how did all this happen, Twily?” The elder Twilight asked. “We heard you went to Draconia, but nothing else.”
“You mean Luna? Or the...god thing?”
“Yes,” Night Light said dryly, and Twilight ducked her head.
“Well, um. Luna and I were sort of stranded together...”
“And she died.” Luna broke into the conversation. Special though they might be, what was really being asked was not unique at all, though rarely stated aloud. What have you done to our daughter?
“What?” The exclamation came from half the table, and Luna shot Twilight an apologetic glance. It might have been more blunt than Twilight had planned, but Luna felt the onus was hers. Whatever judgement they passed would be of her, not of Twilight.
“The two things you ask are..connected. Our relationship is partly a god thing.” She paused as the food arrived, masterful culinary delicacies that would probably go unappreciated for the talk. Plates clinked down in a waitful silence, and Luna dismissed the servers with a murmured thanks.
“What happened. We were thrown together because Celestia had no choice. I needed her because I had no choice. But she did choose.” Luna drew a long breath. “Twilight tried to protect me, and yes, she was killed for it. That was a choice. And when I offered her a way back, she chose to take it.”
“It’s true,” Twilight said quietly. “It’s...impossible to describe. But she was there, and...I couldn’t leave her.” She looked around the table, but her gaze was set on something much further away. “I suppose we did it wrong, because it wasn’t love at the time, even if it was a commitment. But now...”
“No,” Cadence put in, speaking with serious authority. “There is no right way to fall into love.” She shared a tender look with Shining Armor, one full of memory and shared experience. “As long as it’s true, there is nothing wrong about it.”
Luna let out a slow breath. Her experience with romance was extensive, but with love it was nearly nonexistent. Her relationship with Twilight had begun in a manner that was not entirely fair or even usual, and Celestia’s truth had only driven her worries deeper. But Cadence’s sideways approval was at least a little encouraging.
“Wait,” Night Light said. “Where does Celestia fit into all of this?”
“She was grooming ponies for this - for godhood, to be my companion - for some time.” Luna’s muzzle twisted briefly. “I needed somepony. Mortals die, and gods do not really have families. We have no parents, and cannot have children.”
At the last statement both Night Light and Twilight Velvet looked immediately to Cadence, who blushed but murmured a reply. “I’m not a god. I turned it down.”
“What?” Shining Armor stared at Cadence, and she leaned over to nuzzle him.
“There were...some options. I am a princess, after all.” Cadence smiled fondly. “But I love you, Shining Armor. I would never do anything which would change that love.”
“I...” Shining Armor’s mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, and finally smiled. “I love you too, Mi Amore Cadenza.”
“Oh, my,” Rarity cooed. “Aren’t they just adorable?”
Luna smiled, hiding a brief pang of envy. The two of them had such a solid, unshakeable connection that it only made her more aware of the fragility in her relationship with Twilight. She wished there were no questions, no doubts, and no worries between them, and as she turned to look at Twilight she saw that same longing in her eyes.
“Anyway,” Twilight said after a moment. “It was a bit sudden, yes. But I should have written to you and explained...things. Though I’m not sure how much I understand it all myself!” She gave her parents a resigned smile. “There aren’t as many books on it as you might think.”
“Well, you can write the book on godhood, then.” Twilight Velvet leaned over to give her daughter a reassuring hug.
“I think I should,” the younger Twilight agreed, momentarily distracted. “I’d have to invent entirely new branches of investigation...”
“After we get through this next week,” Luna said, recognizing the signs of brewing obsession. “I barely made it through today. I’m going to need your help to run Equestria at all, let alone well.”
“I think you did fine, sugarc- Luna.” Applejack put down her fork to look earnestly at the alicorn. “I may not be a fancy noble but everything you said today made sense to me.”
“Sadly, talking sense in public court is only a small part of running Equestria.” Luna grimaced. “I may not have been on the throne for a while but I remember that much. There’s paperwork. Endless paperwork.”
“You’re making being a princess sound way boring,” Rainbow Dash put in, having somehow already cleaned her plate. “Don’t you get to go cruise with the Wonderbolts or tour the secret Equestrian base underneath Canterlot or something?”
“What secret base?” Fluttershy looked alarmed, and Rainbow Dash grinned.
“There’s gotta be something buried down there.” She waved at the floor. “I mean, Princess Celestia has to do something with all those bits.”
“I don’t know of any sort of...base,” Luna said thoughtfully. “Canterlot was after my time. But that does sound like something ‘Tia would do.”
“There’s nothing under Canterlot but the old mines,” Twilight Sparkle said firmly. “I’ve got some experience there.”
“And believe me, if there were anything interesting down there we would have found out,” Cadence said dryly. “All that’s there are gems.”
“Gems?” Rarity and Spike spoke up at the same moment, their eyes holding similar avaricious glints.
“It’s an old mine,” Twilight said repressively. “And it’s not entirely safe. But,” she conceded, yielding to the inevitable. “If you want to go I suppose someone can arrange a tour.”
“I’ll get Skyshine to take care of that,” Luna said. “After dinner. Or whenever there’s the chance.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it darling,” Rarity laughed. “I think being here for you is rather more important.” Her eyes glittered. “And if that means mixing with the Canterlot elite, well, that’s a burden I’m willing to bear.”
“Aw.” Spike looked downcast for a moment, then summoned a look of determination. “Well I have to be herald anyway, right? I bet we’ll be all busy.”
“Court isn’t the whole day,” Luna murmured.
“Thank you, Spike,” Twilight said. “I’m sure you’ll have some time to enjoy yourself though.”
***
“So are we done?” Spike asked, shifting from foot to foot, obviously eager to be away.
“...yes.” Luna sighed, looking at the empty hall, and pieced together a smile for Spike. “Go enjoy yourself.”
The dragon grinned, oblivious to Luna’s distress. “All right. Catch up with you later, Twi, Luna.” He capered off and away into the halls of Canterlot Castle, and Twilight shifted over to put a hoof on Luna’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Princess,” Skyshine said before Twilight could open her mouth. “I thought I had everypony scheduled and waiting but - “
“It’s not your fault,” Luna said tiredly. “I have never been quite as...agreeable as Celestia. After yesterday I expect they all decided they’d rather not deal with me.”
Twilight winced. She had some idea of how much the scarce turnout wounded Luna, but she was at a loss for an immediate reply. Luna was probably right. She was only vaguely conversant with the Canterlot elite, and mostly through Rarity, but she knew that anything that disrupted their usual schedules and fetes was to be shunned. She squeezed her eyes shut, thinking hard, trying to get emotion to yield to logic.
“Luna,” she said, and the alicorn twitched as if stung.
“Yes, Twilight?” Luna’s voice was flat, dulled.
“Did I ever tell you about what happened at the Grand Galloping Gala?”
“No...” Luna turned to look at her and Twilight pulled her closer.
“My friends and I were so excited to go. None of us ever had before. We all had plans and hopes and things we wanted to do.” Twilight smiled at Luna’s confused expression. “It was a disaster. Everything was ruined. None of us had any fun.”
“This is sounding depressingly familiar.” Luna managed a dry smile, surveying the empty audience chamber.
“Yes, well.” Twilight chuckled. “We all ended up at Pony Joe’s. And...” She hesitated a moment before continuing. “Celestia met us there. And told us that she was hoping we would upset them. Give them a shock.”
Luna had gone stiff against her, and now her voice had a bitter, rasping edge. “This sounds familiar too.”
“The point is that they spurned us, all of us, but it wasn’t because we were bad ponies. You know all of us. The problem was with them. Their expectations and habits.”
“So this is just a larger version of the Gala? That was a test run for this?” Twilight could taste the bitterness in Luna’s voice.
“No,” Twilight said firmly. “There was something I didn’t ask at the time, or even later. Why didn’t Celestia do it herself?”
Luna started to snap a reply, then closed her mouth on it. Twilight continued, encouraged. “Celestia is your sister, you know her. And I grew up with her. She played...little games like that. But it seemed she could never do more than that.”
“This isn’t making me feel any better,” Luna muttered.
“Luna, we both know that so many of the ponies here are selfish and power-hungry. For whatever reason, Celestia couldn’t change that. But you can.”
“And become a tyrant?” Luna hunched into herself. “This isn’t my kingdom. It’s theirs. Hers. They’ve run it without me for a thousand years. Does it matter what you or I think about them?”
“I think it does,” Skyshine ventured, and they both jumped, having forgotten she was there. “Not everypony here is like them. They might be important but that doesn’t mean they’re right.”
“And you are the Princess. It is your duty to decide what is right and what is wrong, and what Equestria will be like.” Twilight gave Skyshine a thankful nod.
“My judgement of late has not been...exemplary,” Luna muttered, rustling her wings uncomfortably. “Why would anypony listen to me to begin with?”
Twilight took a deep breath, looking up at the moonlight silvering the glass of the audience hall. “Skyshine, I believe we will be retiring for the night.”
“Of course.” The pegasus bowed and withdrew, going to file what decisions had been made in the unproductive evening and start the uncounted scribes and functionaries working on them. Twilight and Luna followed after, mounting the steps to the royal suite in the high towers of Canterlot Castle.
The light of star and moon fell softly on the silver-gilt furnishings, splashing over polished wood and puddling on the floor in still pools of night. Luna sank down into deep cushions, shadows drawing themselves over her, and Twilight followed, putting her hooves around the alicorn’s neck and nuzzling in to plant a soft kiss against Luna’s muzzle. Luna, in turn, leaned back against Twilight, tilting her head to bask in the light of the moon. “I don’t know that I can do this,” she sighed. “I told you, a long time ago, that they never loved me. That does not seem to have changed.”
“I love you,” Twilight said defensively, pressing more kisses down Luna’s neck. Seeing that wasn’t helping she stopped and pressed her lips together firmly, searching for words that would reach both Luna’s mind and heart. “Luna,” she said after a moment. “Let me tell you what I saw yesterday. And today.” Luna stirred, shifting enough to look at Twilight as she spoke.
“Every pony that left that hall was changed. No, not all of them were happy, but every one of them was given something. Something more, something different, a dream or a hope or a vision of the future. Because of you. I could see them all, and they were all...dulled. Faded. What they were was nearly snuffed out by the lives they were leading. And you kindled that fire again.”
“Then why didn’t they come back?” Luna looked up at her, turquoise eyes masked with pain both old and new. “If I’ve given them such a wondrous gift, why do they abandon me?”
“The court has been the same for...well, a thousand years. Nopony has ever experienced what you did before. I grew up here, and while I wasn’t exactly social I know that the entire wheel revolved around getting the smallest scrap of concession out of Celestia. Something so profound frightens them.” Her mouth twisted as she reluctantly added another, less profound reason. “And, you’re messing up all their little games, so they’re trying to take their toys and go home.”
“Ah.” Luna’s lips curved into a humorless smile. “That’s familiar enough, at least.”
“And those ponies that go to court aren’t Equestria. If you just let them do what they wanted, that would be tyranny.” Twilight hugged Luna against her. “Luna, you know better than anyone the dangers of succumbing to fear and selfishness. That is a strength, not a weakness.”
“Granting this is true, that the problem is them and not me,” Luna said after a thoughtful moment, color seeping back into her voice. “How do I solve it? I can hardly drag ponies into my presence and berate them into better behavior.”
“You don’t solve it,” Twilight said firmly. “We do. You have friends, Luna. This isn’t something you need to do alone.”
“That seems like cheating, somehow,” Luna said thoughtfully. “But you’re right. This needs some finesse, and that has never been a virtue of mine.”
“I’m sure everyone will be glad to help.” Twilight felt as if a weight had been suddenly lifted, now that she had a concrete problem to engage her mind. Not that she intended to try her hoof at social manipulation; Rarity could lead that particular charm offensive. But behind every faction and player at the royal court was history, economy, and lineage. It would take an enormous amount of study to absorb and understand that wealth of knowledge, but Twilight was more than equal to the task.
“However,” Luna interrupted her thoughts with an iron voice, “I cannot change the way I rule. I...tried...” Her voice faltered momentarily, but she took a breath and continued. “As you say, giving ponies dreams is what I am. I can’t give anything less, or more.”
“Then...how did your joint rule with Celestia work?”
“We...discussed,” Luna replied meditatively. “I may not think like she does but I understand her perspective. Sometimes we went with her solution, sometimes with mine. Sometimes both at once, when they didn’t conflict. But we also had our own realms of expertise, of authority. You could think if it, perhaps, that I was responsible for the growth of Equestria and her ponies, and she was responsible for their safety, their security.”
Twilight nodded thoughtfully. It was true the past thousand years of Equestrian history had been exceedingly stable, but they had been only that. There were artists aplenty, of course, and some of them exceedingly talented. Rarity was proof enough of that. But there had been no real renaissance of ideas, no coherency of purpose. “Current issues aside,” she said, “I don’t see why anyone would have been upset with you, given all that.”
“Not all dreams come true,” Luna said softly. “And when dreams lift you very high up, you can fall so very far.”
“Oh.” Twilight shivered, once, from the echoing implications of Luna’s words.
“I am not safe, Twilight. The future is never certain, and passion has an edge. It cuts. Wonder is close to danger, and not every pony can handle that. Not even most.” She smiled up at Twilight, her expression holding a trace of sadness. “You’ve found out yourself how dangerous it can become, and how wondrous the result can be.”
Twilight blinked, startled. “But you didn’t have anything to do with that! I mean, you didn’t set it up or anything.”
“It’s not what I do, Twilight. It’s who I am.”
“Luna,” Twilight said firmly. “You can’t take the credit - or blame - for everything that happens around you. Nopony is responsible for everything, not even a goddess or a princess.” Twilight did her best to ignore the faint, creeping suspicion that Luna might be right. Equestria had been far more dangerous, and more wondrous, since Luna’s return.
“Mmm.” Luna made a noise that was either disagreement or lack of conviction.
“I understand that today was rough, but I won’t have you moping over some destiny thing that may or may not even exist.” Twilight frowned at her. “We have a plan, sort of, and a goal. I just need to make up a checklist.”
Luna snorted softly. “Your checklists,” she said fondly. “Very well. Summon your paper and quills. The Princess of Equestria is, as ever, at your command.”
Celestia had a wealth of experience in finding that which was meant to be hidden. Sometimes it was a small thing like Tenebrous’ nickname, sometimes larger, like the machinations of Canterlot’s nobles. Petty or profound, she sifted secrets from the flow of her subjects lives. And kept them.
She didn’t have that advantage in the desolate wilds past the Everfree, where there were no ponies and the land didn’t speak to her, but she knew how secrets were concealed and defended. She spread her senses wide as she walked through Luna’s night, looking not for what might be hidden but where something concealed would remain unnoticed.
She rippled through the wilderness in a broad wave of orphaned dawn, sending the creatures of the night into confused silence behind her. She did not so much walk as flow, sliding through tall grass and dense trees with the ease of morning light. It had been a very long time since she had truly been outside Equestria, and even the mountains had become unfamiliar. Celestia treasured that newness even if she hadn’t the time to fully enjoy it.
Her course halted at the border of a broad plain, the grasses soft and dark in the moonlight. The accompanying glow condensed back onto her coat in a brief glimmering sparkle before fading away. Celestia regarded the empty, open prairie thoughtfully, and stepped forward with a slow, deliberate stride. Her horn lit and flashed in a brilliant strobe as she bent all her magic on one particular spell, casting it over the innocuous landscape. The empty air itself flickered and began to melt away, grass shivering and vanishing to unveil black hills and spires, a chitin city grudgingly revealing itself.
There was silence where there should have been life, with only a pair of grim-faced sentinels standing silently at the entrance to the hive. There was little expression on their black muzzles as she approached but there was horror in their eyes, the soft blue reflecting the sunlight still gathered about her. They tensed further with each step she took, ready to fling themselves bodily in front of her in a futile effort to stop her approach. But she stopped just short of crossing that line, regarding the changelings in front of her. “Tell your Queen I am here.”
The answering silence stretched out, tense and trembling, while the guards neither moved nor spoke. Celestia waited patiently, knowing that somewhere behind those eyes, near at hoof or far away, was another mind, one nearly as ancient as her own. The wind blew and blades of grass hissed, but no birds flew overhead, no creatures of the forest scurried or chattered in the nearby trees. With the illusion stripped away, the hive and its surroundings were silent as a stone. Or a grave.
Eventually there came the soft tapping of hoofsteps and a foal - or perhaps, a hatchling - appeared through the angled arch and bowed to her. “Queen Chrysalis sends her greetings, Sol Aeturnus,” she said in a thin, piping voice.
“Thank you, little one,” Celestia said, smiling down at the small, fragile representative. It was the sort of gamble Chrysalis preferred, ruthlessly exploiting emotions. It wasn’t at all needed, but if Celestia had come in fire and vengeance, it would not have been enough. “I will speak with her.”
The hatchling blinked up at her. “Of course,” she said, turning and stepping back through the archway. “Please follow me, Your Majesty.”
Celestia complied, her hooves striking odd sounds from the organic floor. The ground itself shivered in terrified ecstasy under her; even as far from her throne as she was, she still carried the love of her subjects with her. Each step sent trembles through the hive, as if she were a careless giant treading on the flat black floor. Lurid green rivulets twining through the ceiling and walls cast soft-edged shadows in faded red, but they illuminated nopony other than Celestia and her guide. The silence inside matched the silence out, and tunnels that should have swarmed with changelings were empty and echoing.
They went down, through abandoned passages and through open caverns, though narrow galleys outlined by spatterings of green. Finally she was led into a great central chamber, and here at last were other changelings, muttering and rustling around the periphery of the room. And in the middle Chrysalis lounged on a black throne, watching through slit-pupiled eyes. “Why, Celestia,” she said in a voice dripping with acid insincerity. “What a pleasant surprise.”
“I’m sure,” she murmured in reply, walking through the chamber to stand in front of the throne. She stood, head tilted slightly, watching Chrysalis patiently.
“Well?” Chrysalis snapped, her wings buzzing briefly in irritation. “Have you come for vengeance? To crush us underhoof once and for all? To see me cower and beg for my children?” She glared at Celestia. “You don’t frighten me. I bested you before.”
“Did you?” Celestia’s voice was light, amused, and sudden uncertainty flickered behind the narrowed eyes of the changeling Queen.
“Yes.” Chrysalis said flatly, after just too long of a pause. “What do you want?”
“I’m just here to talk.” She offered Chrysalis a small, sad smile. “Rosedust.”
All the emotion drained from Chrysalis’ face and she gazed at Celestia with flat and empty eyes. The soft sounds of the other changelings gathered around them faded into utter stillness, and Celestia stood in a room full of statues. Then, one by one, they left, vanishing into the hundreds of tunnels, until it was only Chrysalis on her throne and the hatchling hunkered down at Celestia’s hooves as if sheltering from an invisible wind.
“I am not that anymore.” Each word was sharp and precise, a shard of diamond driven between them. “Rosedust is dead, along with her flutterponies. There is only us.”
“I was afraid of that,” Celestia sighed. “What were you thinking? There was no need for you to delve so deeply into the heart of the world. Even I risked far too much to bring forth the Elements of Harmony.”
“No need?” Chrysalis laughed, a harsh and angry sound. “You’re Celestia. Sol Invictus. You defeated Discord with your Elements and then went on to sweep away everything that made an enemy of you. You have no idea of how little it takes to threaten those who do not have that power.”
“Perhaps not,” Celestia admitted. “But was whatever you were so frightened of worse than this?” She gestured around at the green-lit underground, hidden away from the sun.
Chrysalis bared her fangs. “Contrary to what you might think, we like what we are. We are proud, clever hunters, preying on stupid ponies. What we do not like is the situation we have found ourselves in.”
“And what situation is that?” Celestia asked quietly.
“Hah.” Chrysalis snorted. “That is not your concern.”
“A situation that drives you to attack Canterlot itself, attack me, and threaten my subjects is very much my concern.” She deliberately turned to look at the hatchling at her hooves, addressing it directly. “Queen Chrysalis.”
The hatchling looked back calmly, and her eyes flashed. Then in a swirl of rancid magic Chrysalis discarded her disguise. The changeling on the throne slumped down into a scarred and aged veteran, no longer the haughty ruler he had played. “What gave me away?” Chrysalis asked sourly.
“Nothing.” Celestia shook her head at the changeling queen. “It was an astounding performance. But you are who you are. I knew there would be something I did not see, so I...guessed.”
“So I’m predictable. Even better.” She stalked away from Celestia, crossing to her throne and putting a soothing hoof on the back of the elder changeling there.
“We are, all of us, trapped by our own natures,” Celestia said quietly.
“Trapped.” Chrysalis snorted derisively. “You, trapped? You’re the center of the most powerful nation to exist, surrounded by uncountable loving ponies, and the sun rises and sets at your whim. “
“Some cages are more gilt than others,” Celestia admitted. “But it seems yours chafes more, of late.”
“Of late?” Chrysalis barked an ugly laugh. “It has been closing in on us for the past thousand years. An Equestria that is so stable and orderly, its emotions so quieted, is barren land for us. Every generation, every year, we have shrunk. Withered.”
“You’re dying,” Celestia finished for her.
“From the moment I was hatched, we all knew I would be the last Queen Chrysalis.” She looked down at the aged warrior slumped in her throne, his breathing too labored even for one of his years. “Any victory was something to dream of. To conquer Canterlot, to drink all that power even just for a short time...”
“You might have survived long enough for us to attack you,” Celestia said quietly.
“And what else could I do?” Chrysalis glared at her, eyes flashing. “Let us simply fade away?”
“You could have asked for help.”
Chrysalis stared, speechless. Her wings trembled. “Would you give it?”
“I can forgive your attacks, but the danger to my ponies...” Celestia shook her head. “I could not.”
“Then why did you mention it?” Chrysalis shrieked, the walls of the hive itself trembling from the force of her anger.
“Because I am not ruling in Canterlot right now.” Celestia replied calmly. “It would not be my help you would ask.”
Chrysalis gaped. Her mouth worked soundlessly in pure shock for a moment, then she shook her head as if trying to shrug off a physical blow. When she focused on Celestia again her eyes were narrowed and speculative. “What are you up to?” She demanded.
“Ah.” Celestia smiled, a genuine and approving smile. “I am taking chances.” She stepped toward where Chrysalis stood at her throne, making the changeling queen tense suspiciously. “The past thousand years have not been entirely kind to ponies, either. I have found myself controlling their lives far too closely. Just as you have, I suspect.” She nodded at the changeling on the throne. “They were never meant to be puppets, were they?”
“No.” Chrysalis admitted grudgingly. She looked down at her subject, and her expression softened. “But they are so fragile, and we have lost so much. We need all our strength together to survive. What else could I do?”
“Perhaps nothing. Our choices have always been limited. We are...constrained.” Celestia sighed. “No matter what either of us might wish, if I were the sole ruler in Canterlot your end would be inevitable.”
Chrysalis hissed. “I realize I’m outmatched. You don’t have to rub my face in it.”
“I apologize,” Celestia said, her tone quiet and serious. “I did not intend it that way. I truly am sympathetic to your plight, and despite everything I do not bear you any ill will. I meant to remark that our personal feelings, friendship or animus, pride or shame, have no bearing on what we can do.”
“They have far more bearing for you than for me,” Chrysalis growled.
“That may be true.” Celestia leveled her gaze at Chrysalis. “But we will all run to ruin in the end. The world has changed. We have not and we cannot.” She paused and smiled faintly. “Most of us.”
“And what is the point of this?” Chrysalis burst out. “You might have time to ponder philosophy and be delightfully oblique, but my people are dying. I don’t care if you are savior or executioner but if you are neither then get out.” Green magic flared, battering against Celestia, and she planted her hooves.
Light burst forth from Celestia. It wasn’t just bright. It wasn’t just brilliant. It wasn’t just blinding. It shone through blood and bone and chitin alike, blazing straight through the walls of the hive and the surrounding earth. The pressure of her light alone drove Chrysalis back, sending her stumbling against her throne before the will of the incarnate sun pinned her in place.
There should have been sound, a roaring and thundering to match the relentless flood of power. But Celestia’s hoofsteps sounded in a crystalline silence and her voice was level, impossibly casual to come from such a bright-burning form. “As I said, I will speak with you. Whether you want to speak on polite terms, or under this coercion, is your choice. But we will speak. That is not your choice.”
“All right.” Chrysalis spoke in a hoarse, strained voice. “You’ve made your point.”
Instantly the merciless cascade of light stopped, though here and there it persisted for a few moments, twinkling in the air and the walls like fading embers. The empyrean fire of Celestia’s being calmed, fading back to merely mortal form. The black chitin walls creaked as her will relaxed, the entire room seeming to expand slightly from the release of that pressure. She even held out a hoof to help Chrysalis up, but the changeling queen ignored her as she righted herself with a brief buzz of her wings.
“Very well,” she said flatly, hatred burning in her eyes. “Speak.”
Celestia cocked her head at Chrysalis, holding her gaze. “Listen to me. Not as Queen Chrysalis, but as Rosedust, or whatever is left of her, whatever she’s become.” She waited for the faint nod of assent, more a twitch than a conscious concession. “I cannot help you.” Celestia emphasized each word. “But I can speak with you.”
Drop by drop, the venom leaked out of Chrysalis’ expression, until she looked merely bitter. “I seem to have lost the thread of our conversation,” she said after a moment.
“Then let us try this one,” Celestia said, turning away to examine the aged changeling still resting, nearly unconscious, on the throne. “What are you to your changelings? Mother, ruler? Arbiter of morality, judge and jury?”
Chrysalis took a deep breath, her muzzle wrinkling as if she’d bitten into something unexpectedly sour. “I am their center,” she said heavily. “That was true even...before, but now I am all that keeps them from falling apart. We were always close, and now I hold a piece of all of them.”
“You mean that more than figuratively, don’t you?” Celestia turned to Chrysalis. “It hurts me whenever any of my ponies is hurt, or dies. But for you, something is taken from you.” It was not a question. “And as you’ve drawn them closer, that loss spreads out over the rest.” She shook her head slowly. “How are any of you still sane?”
“Perhaps we aren’t.” Chrysalis bared her fangs. “How would you tell?”
Celestia smiled dryly, sharing the dark humor. “I suppose. So without you, where would they be?”
She eyed Celestia warily. “Lost,” she said after a long pause. “Alone. Severed from each other.”
“Center, indeed,” Celestia murmured. “I do not know what my subjects will be without me, but I suppose I will find out. I have left my dear sister Luna as the official ruler in my absence, but I have not left her alone.”
Chrysalis narrowed her eyes at Celesta, suddenly alert. “Cadenza?”
“No. Cadenza has the Crystal Empire to administer without shouldering Equestria, and besides, she is not a god. Equestria really needs two.”
“Yes...” She hissed it, her slit-pupiled eyes studying Celestia’s face. “Who?”
Celestia raised her eyebrows. “Surely, even here, isolated as you are, you felt it. The birth of a new goddess.”
The changeling queen betrayed no expression at all as she studied Celestia, searching her face before finally shaking her head slowly. “No. I have been too busy to pay attention to anything outside of the hive’s concerns.”
“Ah.” Celestia smiled proudly. “My dear student, Twilight Sparkle, has become the first mortal to don a divine mantle.”
“Twilight Sparkle.” Chrysalis’ ears flattened. “The purple one.”
“Yes,” Celestia agreed. “The purple one.”
“So of the two gods in Canterlot, I have made a personal enemy of one, and assaulted the sister of the other.” There was no humor in her tone. Neither was there despair or anger. It was flat, emotionless, and lifeless as cold stone.
“I would like to believe Twilight is nopony’s enemy. Certainly she is frighteningly effective when confronted with an obstacle, but Nightmare Moon has been redeemed, and Discord walks free, even if he is far more constrained than even he realizes.” Celestia’s expression turned thoughtful. “I’m afraid there was not much left of Sombra but his hunger for the Crystal Heart, but she would be the first to point out that was not entirely her doing.”
Chrysalis made no reply, but her ears twitched, listening to Celestia. The quiet of the room was broken only by the hoarse, steady breathing of the elder changeling, but the mood had turned watchful. Soft cerulean glinted from the spattering of tunnels around the chamber where the others had crept back to watch and listen. Celestia pretended not to notice, focusing her attention on their queen.
“And Luna dreams brighter futures for everypony, more than they would dare hope. She is certainly passionate but I do not believe she bears a grudge against you. Though it is possible she bears a grudge against me.” Celestia’s calm serenity turned sorrowful. “We did not part on the best of terms.”
“Princess Luna, resentful of you? How novel.” The tone was almost mocking, but Chrysalis subsided after a sharp look from Celestia. Her next question was far more serious. “So did Luna - or this Twilight - do what I could not?”
“No, I suggested it. It was in everypony’s best interests for me to be absent for a while.” Celestia kept her tone calm and neutral. “Even mine.”
Chrysalis looked at Celestia for a long, long time, finally shaking her head in disbelief. “I have never understood you,” she said.
“You may never need to.” The corners of Celestia’s mouth turned upward in a faint, ironic smile. “You need only believe me, queen of deception.”
Chrysalis grunted, unamused. “I saw Shining Armor’s memories,” she said. “Your truths are more misleading than my lies.”
Celestia bowed her head. “I admit it,” she said. “But I make my apologies to those who have been hurt. Do you?”
She got no reply, only a long, steady look from the changeling queen, and Celestia smiled softly. “I will leave you with that question, then. I have my own to answer, and should be about it.” She turned toward the chamber’s exit, her hooves sounding loudly in the quiet. “I know the way out.”
The Canterlot Archives buzzed with activity. The entirety of the staff, every shift and the reserve, was occupied by pulling books from the shelves and piling them into carts. The stacks more resembled a mine than a library, with knowledge being excavated from the depths and ferried to the surface. It was not to feed the appetite of an industry or a city, but rather that of a single mare.
Twilight rested in the middle of a broad open space, eschewing the reading desks and couches for a plain cushion and lots of room. Her eyes were a blank white and her mane glowed and rippled in a nonexistent breeze, divine power hanging thick in the air. Books marched from left to right in ordered ranks, their covers spread, pages flipping. The wall of tomes stretched from floor to ceiling, arranged in a strange assembly line as only Twilight could organize. Scrolls punctuated the flow of ornamented covers, unrolling themselves as she shuffled them off to the side of the floating books, bracketing herself with pressed papyrus.
She drank in the river of knowledge completely, over a thousand years of histories and records, treatises and diaries. Her horn barely glowed, but faint whispers of lavender and violet rippled through the air like a misplaced aurora, and the fur of the librarians stood on end whenever they drew near enough to push yet another cart into position. She didn’t even see the workers feeding her insatiable appetite, just the books as they were lifted, consumed, and placed back down on the other side of the room, spent.
There weren’t any other patrons. Not only was it early morning, but there was neither room nor attention for any other pony but Twilight Sparkle. It was not the first time that she had monopolized the Archives, but it was the first time she had done so in a fashion quite so spectacular. A few gawkers had gathered outside the open archive doors, dazzled by the inconstant light of a god at work, and as the morning wore on more accumulated, some small portion of the traffic stopping and staying.
“Excuse me, pardon me, everypony...” Rarity sailed merrily through the gathered crowd, pushing them aside with polite words and stepping through the doorway into the hushed maelstrom of the library. There she faltered briefly as she took in the sight of Twilight in her full glory, half ethereal, consuming a hundred books at a time, and illuminated from within by the heady light of incarnate knowledge. It wasn’t just the light that threw off her stride, but also the long and shimmering horn that adorned Twilight’s now alicorn-sized frame. Rarity couldn’t help a small stab of jealousy at Twilight’s lithe elegance, so suddenly acquired and carried without thought, but she pushed it aside. If Twilight was to be in the company of the Princesses, it was fitting that she looked like them.
As she stood gawking she noticed something more, not about Twilight herself but about the books she was handling. Twilight wasn’t just reading them. As they moved through her magic, her presence, wear and tear reversed itself. Ragged edges became smooth, creases vanished, tears repaired themselves and stains dwindled to nothing. It was in all quite a sight, but she took a breath, braced herself, and stepped forward, assured that regardless of spectacle, Twilight was still Twilight.
As soon as Rarity crossed behind the wall of moving books, Twilight turned to look at her, face blank, eyes a featureless white. The scattered shards of her attention coalesced around her friend, her focus made physically manifest as pointed crystals of deep lavender. The moment Rarity blanched, though, it all evaporated. The glow vanished, the books slowed to a halt, Twilight’s mane and tail lost their otherworldly lustre, and the oppressive weight of power eased.
“G’morning R’rity,” Twilight said, sounding a trifle underwater. She shook her head once, then once more, blinking, and tried again. “Good morning, Rarity.” She smiled ruefully. “Sorry, I’m a little bit bookmuddled.”
“Good morning, Twilight.” Rarity produced a brilliant if uncertain smile. “I’m sorry, bookmuddled?”
“Literary-derived dissociative fugue?” Twilight prompted. “You know, after you’ve finished reading a book and it’s still with you so you have a hard time remembering it’s not the real world?”
“Oh! I see.” Rarity eyed the immense pile of unshelved books behind Twilight. “Yes, I can imagine why.”
“Yeah.” Twilight gave her a sheepish grin. “I’ve made it through most of the archive, at least. Anyway! You got my note?”
“We got all your notes,” Rarity said archly. “Though really Twilight, something that long is more than just a note!”
“I didn’t want to wake you up!” Twilight said defensively. “You all stayed up pretty late for Luna and I didn’t want to bother you any more than I was.”
“Oh, and I appreciate it!” Rarity waved it away. “It’s just...are you sure you know what you’re doing, Twilight? Politics are not exactly straightforward. Or kind, most of the time.”
“Well, that’s why I’m having you take care of it.” Twilight paused a moment, realizing how that sounded, then shook her head. “Anyway. I know you are good at making contacts here in Canterlot and that you want to. And I think there are ponies that would be on Luna’s side if they knew what she was like, or at least weren’t following others.”
Rarity nodded agreement. “Oh, certainly, but what do I have to convince them? Besides my charming personality, of course.”
Twilight summoned a stack of cards in a burst of purple sparks and floated it over to Rarity. “Personal audiences with the Princess. Invitations, signed by her.”
“Oooh.” Rarity made a small, pleased noise. “That will get some attention. Did you have anypony particular in mind?”
“No, the kind I want aren’t in these books.” She waved at the momentarily stationary wall of tomes. “Ponies that have big ideas and want to do big things, but haven’t been able to. Luna’s role, her nature is in creativity and ingenuity. That’s what you’re good at too, and a lot of the ponies you know.”
“Such flattery!” Rarity laughed musically, taking the cards from Twilight and stowing them safely away. “I know just where to start.”
“I knew I could count on you,” Twilight beamed. “Are the rest of you clear on what to do? Should I go talk to them when I’m done here?”
“I think they’ve got it all,” Rarity said. “But are you sure putting Applejack and Pinkie together is the best idea? They have...rather different approaches.”
“Oh, they’ll be fine.” Twilight paused meditatively, considering how much Pinkie Pie had irritated Applejack on a certain memorable occasion. “I hope. Anyway, they’re not going after the courtiers so I’m not worried about a lack of, um, decorum.”
“True.” Rarity nodded sagely. “Very well, I’ll go start...networking.” She flashed a brilliant grin. “Ta-ta!”
“See you later!” Twilight smiled, waiting for Rarity to reach the door before starting the show again. The time spent with Rarity had given the library staff a chance to catch up with a small part of the backlog, and Twilight tackled it with eager thirst, quaffing the bounty in a froth of information.
In all it took her only a few hours more to finish what she wanted, even if it was tempting to continue on and consume everything the Canterlot Archive had to offer. But she had work to do, and comparative literary analysis of the works of the preunification period wasn’t very relevant. Reluctantly, she deposited the last of the books on the final carts, wobbling slightly as she stood up. The teeming multitude of facts trumpeted and thundered in her mind, trying to trample over her thoughts, but she martialed them into order, strict as any general.
For all that she could feel the power of her godhood, it seemed to paradoxically make no difference to the difficulty of her work. There was no spontaneous revelation, no effortless flash of insight to aid her. All it seemed to grant her was a metaphysical depth; stronger roots, a larger reservoir. She did not reach higher than mortals, but her foundation was laid on deeper bedrock. So while she could handle that massive influx of history and sociology and politics, it still left her as dazed and staggered as any other studying binge.
She picked her way, blinking, through the cluttered detritus of book-laden carts until she found the head archivist, directing the re-shelving with the grace and timing of an orchestra conductor. “Thank you,” she said cheerfully, despite feeling as if everything was somehow more distant, sounds echoing tinnily in her ears. “I might be back for more, but not today or tomorrow.”
“You’re...welcome.” Chrysoberyl managed to get out after a faint, incredulous pause, hastily essaying a deep bow to the goddess. “It was an honor, Miss Sparkle.”
Twilight smiled uncertainly, not sure how to respond to the obeisance. She settled for a hasty nod and headed for the door. The crowd there parted like water around her, scattering off into the hallways. She watched in faint bemusement, not quite able to grasp their behavior through the obscuring haze of still-unruly knowledge. But it was a puzzle far down on her list, and she turned her mind to other issues as she trotted off to find the suddenly-overworked Skyshine.
The pegasus was the center of a mass of lesser functionaries, each of whom came bearing paperwork, adding to the growing tower of official forms on Skyshine’s desk. That crowd, too, parted to let Twilight through, swirling away from her form like foam in the wake of a boat as she approached Skyshine. By the time she reached the desk the room was nearly empty, and she looked back curiously. “Why are they doing that?” She asked idly.
Skyshine stared at her with disbelief. “Because,” she managed after a moment. “You’re overwhelming.”
“What?” Twilight blinked, feeling a cold shock splash over her. “What do you mean?”
“You’re...” Skyshine gestured helplessly. “It’s just...it’s hard to think.” She had a wide-eyed, poleaxed expression, and faint panic began to chase away the remaining fog in Twilight’s mind. She became aware, all at once, that she still wore the power she’d invested in her literary efforts wrapped about her like a dress, trailing along behind her in an invisible train. She clutched at it, pulling it into herself in a convulsive hiccup, and the tension in the room vanished.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t know...I mean, is it really that bad?” She blinked at her new perspective from ever so slightly nearer the floor. She’d been so preoccupied she hadn’t even noticed the difference.
“It’s. Um.” Skyshine rubbed at her throat. “Like standing at the bottom of a very tall mountain. And seeing an avalanche. It’s just...beyond the scope of any pony, a force of nature, and it...impends.”
“Oh,” Twilight said in slow horror, thinking of all the ponies she’d brushed past and sent fleeing without really noticing. Of how she must have seemed to them all - remote, distant, unreachable, powerful. A god.
“Oh.” She said again, flushed with an obscure embarrassment. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Skyshine said gamely. “It’s just who you are.”
“It’s not all right,” Twilight disagreed. “I’ll have to pay closer attention from now on.”
“Of course, Miss Sparkle.”
Twilight shook her head. “Just Twilight,” she corrected Skyshine. “Please.”
The pegasus nodded and cleared her throat. “Very well, Twilight, what can I do for you?”
“Oh, right.” She shook her head. The shock had driven all thought of her errand out of her mind, but now it returned in force, along with all the knowledge she’d acquired for the purpose. “I need a meeting with Prince Blueblood, Duke Diamond, Duchess Platinum, Count Silver, and Marquess Malachite.”
Skyshine’s eyes widened as she took in the names. “But that’s all -” she started, stopped herself, and nodded. “Of course, Miss Sparkle. I’ll set up a meeting with them as soon as may be.”
“Thank you, Skyshine.” Twilight glanced guiltily around at the ponies who were peering cautiously into the room. “Um, I’ll go...find Luna. She’s in the tower?”
“I believe so. If she’s sticking to her schedule.”
“Right. Thanks!” Twilight gave Skyshine a wan smile and scurried out, climbing stairs and crossing the short skyway to the Lunar tower.
***
Though Luna’s own domain within Canterlot Castle had been busy ever since Luna had assumed her place on the throne, it was not special in that regard. The empty audience chamber notwithstanding, the Castle itself had been full of fevered activity since the change, and it showed no signs of abating. And now it was especially severe as Luna herself was staying in the tower to address as much as she could of what Twilight termed ‘public relations issues.’
Luna wasn’t sure she was addressing them well at all. Despite her prowess at oration, talking with ponies on a more personal level was not something she had ever been good at. At that, Twilight had admitted she wasn’t the best either, even granting she had somehow ended up with more and better friends than she’d ever imagined, and hadn’t been able to give Luna much advice. But they were both in agreement that Luna had taken all those in her service for granted for far too long.
It would have been logical to start with her personal guards, the bat-winged and dragon-eyed ponies that shadowed her wherever she went, but some deep intuition made her discard that. Intuition or uncertainty; regardless of which one was ascendant she left them to trail silently along behind her as she made her rounds.
Making ponies come to her would have been more in keeping with her station, but Luna was keenly aware of how little she’d done to fulfill that role. She was accorded respect by divinity and loyalty by rank, but Celestia didn’t need either. While Luna chafed under any comparison to her sister, even when she made it, this was one instance where she needed to follow Celestia’s example. Unfortunately, she’d quickly found that not only did she not know who the ponies were, she had no idea what most of her staff did.
She stepped into a small room halfway down the tower, having already left a short trail of mutual confusion and alarm behind her, and greeted the young mare sitting behind a desk. “Hello.”
“Princess Luna!” The mare bobbed up in startlement and immediately went back down again in a deep bow.
“Please, be seated.” Luna said, a bit desperately. Nearly every pony she’d addressed had wound up with their muzzle to the floor, which wasn’t the best start to what was intended to be a friendly conversation. Her shadows, at least, stayed outside without being asked, leaving the two of them some modicum of privacy.
“Of course, Your Majesty.” The earth pony bobbed her head, sending loose curls of cherry red mane tumbling over her eyes. Then she pawed it out of the way with a faint, embarrassed panic, settling into her chair with a wan smile. “What can I do for you?”
Luna met the smile with her own, one that was just as uncertain. “I’m...just here to talk. I haven’t been as present as I should have been, these past few years. I’m afraid I don’t know you. What’s your name?”
“Flaire,” she answered, and Luna looked at her closely. There was no need for her to crane her neck to see Flaire’s cutie mark, printed as deep as it was upon her soul. A phoenix feather, throwing off sparks, a fire to match the smoke of her coat and the flame-blue of her eyes. She was not the sort of pony Luna would have expected to see behind a desk doing paperwork.
“Flaire,” Luna repeated, considering the mare. “Your talent is...starting things. Ideas, changes.”
“Why, yes!” The eyes, which had started to quail under Luna’s scrutiny, sharpened again. “How did you know?”
Luna grinned suddenly, conspiratorially. “My sister delights in being mysterious and inscrutable,” she confessed. “And I can see why. But I’ll tell you. I am the goddess of dreams, and your talent is very close to them.”
“Oh,” Flaire said faintly, looking more than a little panicked, and Luna felt her grin starting to slip. That was, it seemed, slightly too much truth.
“Regardless!” Luna pressed on. “What is it you do here? There seems to be more to running the Lunar throne than I remember.”
The mare ducked her head. “I’m secretary for the head of the Canterlot Beautification Committee, Sterling Silver.”
Luna nodded. She could at least see why a beautification committee existed, and why a secretary might be needed, unlike most of the titles accorded to the ponies inside the walls of her domain. And yet, there was something off.
“And why are you here? The fire that burns in you is not that of the coordinator, the logistician, the public servant.” Luna did not underestimate bureaucrats. Some ponies might think of them as soulless automatons, but she knew the passions that drove them were equal to any artist’s muse.
“I...guess it isn’t.” Flaire agreed, trying to look away, her eyes flickering but unable to break contact with Luna’s. “I never intended to be a secretary, really. It just kind of happened.”
Luna chuckled softly. “Yes, I know how things can just happen. What did you intend, then, when you started out? What drove you here to begin with?”
“When I was a foal,” Flaire began slowly. “A friend of mine, my best friend, had no idea what her talent was, what her cutie mark would be.” She smiled briefly in reminiscence. “Maybe it wasn’t as big a deal as we thought at the time, but it seemed important back then. One day we went to a museum on a school trip. It had art, sculpture...I enjoyed it, but it struck her clear through. By the time we left she had her cutie mark.”
Her smile faded. “Not long after, the museum closed, and all I could think was, without it, how would ponies get their cutie marks? So I started then, trying to make it so there would be places for art.”
“And your friend?” Luna asked.
Flaire finally looked away, the muscles in her jaw working briefly, and Luna reached over the desk to place a gentle hoof on her shoulder. Even Luna had no trouble seeing how Flaire felt.
“What happened?”
“There was...an accident. She made her own paints, and...” Flaire made a vague gesture, not really meaning anything, just moving for the sake of moving.
Luna nodded understanding. “Mixing paints is no joke. I bleached myself white for a week once.”
Flaire blanched, turning a speechless glare on Luna before remembering it was the princess she was angry at and looking away again. The smile that Luna had been fighting to keep on her face slid away entirely. Not every conversation ended up with that look, but they all seemed to go off-course somehow. Any openness Luna had managed to coax out of Flaire was gone, the window of opportunity slammed closed by the sudden change of mood.
“I...I’m sorry,” Luna said. “I didn’t mean -”
“It is all right, Princess Luna,” Flaire said stiffly. “It was long ago.”
“Yes, but, it still bothers you,” she protested.
“Yes.”
Luna cast about for some way to continue from the short, unhelpful reply. The atmosphere grew increasingly strained and brittle until she finally abandoned the thread of conversation. “Well,” she said, with as much desperate cheer as she could muster. “I will see what I can do to ensure there are museums for foals, and that you are involved if I can.”
“...thank you,” Flaire said, slightly less formal, and Luna took it as a victory, if a small one. Luna nodded and exited the room with what decorum she could scavenge. Once the door was closed behind her she let herself sag, blowing out a long breath.
She felt suddenly self-conscious as she realized her guards were still there, and straightened up again. “Well, it could have been worse,” she said, half to them and half to herself. She stretched her wings, looking mournfully down the long spiral of the tower, at all the doors she had yet to visit, and suppressed a sigh. It wasn’t aimed at the task ahead of her, but rather at herself for how she’d managed it so far.
Her hoofsteps echoed back to her as she started forward again, trying to reorder her mind before she approached the next pony she could find. The guards were whisper-quiet, and unfocused as she was she didn’t realize that the echo belonged to another pony entirely until Twilight’s voice shocked her out of her reverie.
“Luna! There you are.” Twilight beamed as she trotted toward where Luna had halted in the middle of the hall. “I’m all set, I think. I’m still working out a few details but by the time Skyshine gets everyone together I’m pretty sure I’ll have everything ready.”
The sour mood that had started to creep in vanished as Twilight talked, and Luna chuckled softly at Twilight’s inexhaustible eagerness. “It’s good to hear your plans are going so well.”
“Yup!” Twilight grinned. “Enough organization and everything falls into place.”
“Well...” It didn’t seem that simple to Luna. There was a gap between the concept and the execution of ‘talk to ponies’ that she had yet to cross, but Twilight didn’t seem to have that problem.
Twilight’s cheerfulness faltered slightly. “Is...is everything going all right here?”
“Not...exactly,” Luna admitted to her reluctantly. “I’ve been talking to ponies but I don’t know that I’ve done too well in getting them on my side.”
“What?” Twilight blinked at her. “Why?”
“I just don’t have your gift, Twilight.” She shook her head sadly. “I’ve just never been good at making friends.”
“Well, I’d never made any friends before I went to Ponyville,” Twilight said, stepping forward to rub her muzzle along Luna’s. “But once you start it’s not so bad. I mean, you’re friends with all my friends.”
“They’re different.” Luna leaned in against Twilight’s touch. She wasn’t even convinced that Twilights friends counted, since Twilight had been there every step of the way. “You helped. I need your help for this.”
“I’d love to help! Only, I won’t be here long, since I have to go to my own meeting, and besides I don’t know most of these ponies.” Twilight frowned in thought. “If only you had a...a native guide, who was already on your side - “
One of the guards coughed politely, interrupting her. “Ma’am,” he said deferentially.
Both of them looked at him. Luna knew she’d been neglecting her guards, even more than the rest of her staff, and a sudden sense of dread stabbed at her. Twilight, on the other hoof, radiated interest, and Luna wondered if, growing up in the Palace as she had, she actually knew all the guards Luna didn’t.
“Er, yes?” She hazarded.
“Moonbow and I could...I mean, we’d show you around.”
“You would?” The knot in her gut vanished in a frission of relief, but there was still something that made her want to squirm in embarrassment. She had been treating them as furniture, not ponies, and that was something she should never do. “I’m afraid I don’t know you. I should,” she admitted, “but I don’t. I haven’t been doing things right these past...” She waved a hoof helplessly. “Years.”
“I’m, er, Chestnut.” He reached up and tugged off the crested helm, the glamor fading away to reveal an ordinary pegasus. In fact, one of the most persistently monochrome pegasi she’d ever seen. Dun coat, dun mane, dun eyes and an overall demeanor as to render him nearly unnoticeable even when she was looking directly at him. “And we know, ma’am.”
Luna winced, even though Chestnut managed to make the “ma’am” a far more profoundly respectful address than most ponies managed with more ornate titles.
“We’ve been here since you came back. Well, before you came back but we didn’t matter then...” He paused for a moment to get his thoughts back on track. “The Guard knows what you’ve been through. More or less. We’ve always been here for when you needed us, but you’ve been, um. Distant. Until just today, really.”
He glanced over at Moonbow, who removed her own helmet, though her colors weren’t much different with the glamour gone. “We were always...meant to be your friends,” she said. “It takes more than combat ability to become part of the Lunar Guard.”
“This is perfect!” Twilight’s excitement cut apart any misgivings that might have tried to develop in Luna’s mind. She wanted to object to it as more of Celestia’s meddling, but it was true that in the distant mists of the past, the Guard had been formed out of those ponies that were simply close to the princesses. “We should have thought of asking you first.”
“Yes,” Luna agreed dryly, all too aware that she’d avoided talking to her guards under the nebulous fear of something exactly like this. Now that it had arrived, it wasn’t too bad aside from the cringing core of mortification that kept her smile from being fully genuine. “We should have.”
“We’d love to get to know both of you!” Twilight smiled at them. “After all, we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other.” Twilight giggled. “I’ve hardly ever seen Celestia without her guards, and now I guess with Luna it’ll be the same way.”
“We are supposed to stay with the princesses,” Chestnut said. “Though we haven’t been able to for some time.” He made a face. “I mean, until recently we didn’t have our own princess to protect!”
“Well, I’m back now,” Luna said, feeling that the conversation was starting to go awry again, if in a different way. “How many are in the Guard now? The Equestrian government is...larger than I recall.”
“Oh, there’s several hundred now,” Moonbow said, but continued before Luna could blanch. “But only eight in your personal guard.”
“That doesn’t seem like very many,” Twilight said doubtfully. “Only eight guards for every hour of the day, every day of the year?”
“Well...the princesses - and you - don’t really need their physical safety guarded,” Chestnut explained. “It’s more their mental and emotional and moral safety. We’re here to be supportive and helpful and keep them from going crazy, you know? If you were a princess, your friends - the other Elements - would probably be your guard, effectively.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t ask them to follow me around all day!” Twilight protested. “They’re my friends but they all have their own lives too.”
“Well the Guard had theirs too, at the beginning,” Luna put in. “I ended up leaning on my friends - way back then - for things I needed done, because I could trust them. Eventually it just kind of turned into what the Guard is.”
“And we don’t just follow the princess around all day,” Moonbow added. “Well, we do, but you can just ask the Sunnybutt Squad, we do a lot more than that.”
“The Sunnybutt Squad?” Luna asked, sudden amusement dancing in her eyes. “Really?”
The mare looked suddenly panicked. “Um. Please don’t tell them I called them that.”
Twilight giggled. “I thought I was the only one who had ever called her that. Even if it was only once, when I was a foal.”
“Oh, I called her that all the time.” Luna grinned conspiratorially. “It was a good way to pester her when she was trying to be difficult.” Though Celestia was still somewhat of a raw topic for her, recounting harmless sibling rivalry was inoffensive enough. “I wonder if it still is...”
“I suppose we’ll find out when she gets back,” Twilight said eagerly. “Of course, now you have to tell me what she called you. I know she had to have a nickname for you.”
“Well...”
“I know for a fact Spike told you about that whole ‘Twilight Flopple’ thing,” she said with mock severity. “It’s only fair.”
Luna groaned. “All right, all right,” she said reluctantly. “Woona.”
“Aww, that’s adorable!” Twilight said gleefully.
“I know,” Luna grumbled. “How can you possibly take a ‘Woona’ seriously?”
Moonbow coughed softly and they both glanced at her, then at each other, Twilight ducking her head with a deep flush and Luna briefly pressing her hoof against her forehead. “Forget that you heard anything,” Luna muttered at her guards..
“Ma’am,” Chestnut acknowledged with a barely restrained grin.
“You can’t order me,” Twilight grinned. “But I’ll be nice. I can wait to tease you about it tonight.”
“I can imagine,” Luna said in a dry tone. “It won’t be long until you and Tia are ganging up on me.”
“Or the reverse,” she suggested. “I am supposed to be on your side, after all.”
“‘Welcome back, Sunnybutt’ does have a certain ring to it,” Luna agreed, but both their smiles were somewhat strained. Celestia was still not as harmless a topic as they might have wished.
“Anyway,” she said after a moment, turning to Chestnut and Moonbow. “Could you introduce me properly to the other Guards?”
“Of course!” Moonbow answered. “We’d be glad to!”
“Will you come too, Twilight?” Luna dipped her head to give the unicorn a brief nuzzle.
She smiled apologetically. “I’m afraid I need to get back with Skyshine. I have to be there if somepony doesn’t cooperate.”
“Very well. I will put myself in Chestnut’s and Moonbow’s capable hooves, then.” They exchanged another embrace and Luna turned to her guards. “Lead the way.”
***
Twilight watched them go for a moment before turning around to pick her way back down the tower. She had been worried that Luna might have been having some issue with her attempts to connect to the ponies under her care, and Chestnut and Moonbow’s presence had been a particularly lucky stroke. Or rather, a designed one, and she didn’t know whether to be irritated or thankful that Celestia had made it so.
She put that aside. It was only reasonable to expect that Celestia had chosen the best ponies for her government and it was neither fair nor helpful to get upset about it, especially when she had to somehow dragoon five influential ponies into helping Luna.
As Rarity had pointed out, Twilight had no experience playing politics, and even after her gluttonous library binge she had no expectation of being able to do so effectively. Instead she intended to appeal to their self-interest, which she now knew better than they did. All the thousands of books she’d devoured had given her a unique perspective on their family and personal histories and intersections, and she felt she could at the very least get their attention.
She made her way back to Skyshine’s office, where the harried-looking pegasus was directing an even larger swarm of ponies than before. This time they didn’t scatter at her approach, but more than a few of them gave her a second look. She didn’t mind the second look - she was now an important pony, after all - and she was pleased that she no longer was terrifying anypony, but she still felt awkwardly out of place. She didn’t quite fit in the normal Canterlot hierarchy, and it created an inevitable distance between her and the others.
Skyshine didn’t seem to mind, though. She waved at Twilight the moment the unicorn stepped through the door, before loading up a nearby earth pony scribe with a stack of papers to be delivered elsewhere in the complex of Canterlot’s bureaucracy. “We have got to get you a title,” she called. “I sent everything ‘on behalf of HRH Luna’ but it’s not ‘in her hoof’ so it’s not as urgent as it should be.”
“What would you suggest?” Twilight made her way over to Skyshine’s desk, glancing over the forms and memos and repressing the urge to dig into them herself. “I mean, Luna can just sign whatever we need.”
“How about ‘Equerry?’” Skyshine suggested. “It’s a little obscure but that’s probably for the best. I don’t think anypony really knows what your role is yet, but you obviously should be listened to.”
Twilight frowned thoughtfully, sorting through her massive store of knowledge. “That is obscure,” she said. “Nopony’s held that post since the Diarchy was established. How in Equestria did you manage to have that on the tip of your tongue?”
The pegasus smiled shyly. “I’ve always been a bit of a history fanatic. When Luna first came back I dug even deeper than usual, since the most recent records were a thousand years old. I guess it just sort of stuck with me.”
“Well it works for me,” Twilight smiled. “Go ahead and draw up whatever you need to. I’m sure Luna will be fine with it.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Skyshine assured her. “In the meantime I’ve set up your meeting in the Sunset Harvest Chamber, just off the main tower, first floor. You know which one I’m talking about?”
“I think so.” Twilight closed her eyes a moment, summoning up a mental map of the palace. “All right, yes.”
“It’s cleared for the next...hours...so you can set up whatever you need to.”
“Oh, I don’t have much.” She didn’t have anything, in fact, other than words. That, and the support of Princess Luna, and whatever authority that entailed. “I just need to make sure they’re all coming.”
“The runners should be back any moment. They all live here in Canterlot, after all.” Skyshine glanced at the clock on the wall. “If you hang around another five or six minutes I’m sure you’ll catch one or two of them. I’ll send the rest on down to the chamber.”
“I would like to be sure they’re coming. Even if it’s not all of them.”
“Oh, I’m sure they will,” Skyshine said confidently. “None of them would pass up a chance like this.”
“They decided to ignore Luna’s court though,” Twilight protested.
“Sure, in hopes of getting an invitation like this one.” Skyshine eyed her. “Though I don’t imagine what you have in mind is anything like they do.”
“Oh.” She should have realized the political implications. Until that moment she’d just thought it was pique that drove the ponies, but of course cold calculation had its place. For a moment she felt vastly out of her depth, her mind spinning into the unlit gulf that was political maneuvering, before she focused herself again. She only needed to get them back to court. It would be simple, and it would work. “No, I imagine not,” she said at last.
Another pegasus flitted into the room, half a-wing and half on the ground, reminding her strongly of Rainbow Dash. He stopped long enough to drop a sealed envelope on Skyshine’s desk before vanishing back out the door. “Blueblood’s sigil,” Skyshine said with a glance at the wax crest. “It’s yours.”
Twilight hastily picked it up, cracking the seal with a flicker of magic and opening the crisp paper with a sharp crackle. “To Twilight Sparkle acting on behalf of Her Royal Highness Princess Luna, greetings. It is with the greatest pleasure and so on.” She skimmed down the page. “How can it take him three hundred words to say yes, he’ll be there?” She wondered aloud.
“That’s being brief,” Skyshine said with an absolutely straight face. “Of course, you did ask for an immediate reply.”
Twilight gave Skyshine a look, glanced at the note again, and nodded to herself. “All right. I’m headed down. Have the rest forwarded there.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Thank you.” Twilight gave her a sincere and grateful smile and trotted out of the room. It wasn’t a very long walk to the Sunset Harvest Chamber, which was small and comfortable and decorated in the inevitable autumnal colors. It was emphatically not an audience chamber but a place to have a nice chat, and it brought back half-nostalgic, half-discomforting memories of being in similar rooms with Celestia while she traded polite words about obscure subjects.
She found, half by memory and half by hunch, a small antechamber where she could see ponies arriving through a wood lattice. She could stay there and wait until they’d all arrived, which she understood vaguely made it seem she was more in charge, but it struck her more as hiding and she had to get the replies from the messengers anyway. So she wandered the room, finding the most comfortable seat and settling down.
There wasn’t long to wait. The remaining messages came in quick succession, delivered by courier pegasi, and in one case an earth pony, all confirming the meeting. They were all florid to varying degrees, though Blueblood’s missive was still champion for empty words. It was a little bit gratifying that they had spent so much effort on the replies, even if the actual content didn’t impress her.
When they came themselves, they came in a body. Five unicorns, all uniformly white and immaculately groomed. The only real differences between them were mane colors and cutie marks, making them look like matched siblings. It wasn’t that far from the truth. The genealogy records were meticulously kept, and they could all trace their ancestry to Princess Platinum, if not as directly as Blueblood could.
She blinked away the errant facts that came swarming through her mind at the sight of the subjects she had researched and gave them a broad smile. “Hello! Thank you for meeting me.”
“We were expecting to hear from Luna herself,” Duchess Platinum said, more sour than sweet. “But I suppose you’re just as good. Maybe better.”
“Indeed,” Blueblood said grandly. “We unicorns must stick together. And now that there is a unicorn goddess it is more important than ever that we coordinate.”
“This goddess lark,” the Marquess put in. “I’ve heard it but I’m not sure I believe it. You don’t look like one.”
Twilight was speechless. She’d thought they would ask why she wanted to meet, not hijack the conversation entirely. There was something disturbing about all the hidden assumptions packed into their assured postures and smug expressions. “This doesn’t doesn’t have anything to do with that. I wanted to talk to you about Luna’s court.”
“Of course you did.” Diamond’s blue eyes were cold behind his monocle. “That’s what we’re here to discuss. Now that I think about it, you’re a better court focus than Luna anyhow. She’s too...unpredictable.”
Twilight tossed her head, a combined gesture of frustration and negation. “I am not a court focus. I am here to talk to you about Luna’s court. I know you didn’t go before because you didn’t like what she was doing, but I want you to come back.”
“I’m sure you do,” Blueblood said unhelpfully. “I imagine we can find some agreement that will benefit all of us.”
“Oh, of course!” Twilight brightened again. That was back on script. “I discussed what Luna had in mind and after some research I’ve figured out something for each of you.”
“Really,” Malachite said skeptically, her eyes as green and hard as her namesake. “And what, pray tell?”
“Right.” Twilight glanced around at them. “Luna is a great patron of the arts, and now that she’s back there will be even more creative energy throughout Equestria. It’ll be more like it was over a thousand years ago, but that means more opportunity! Prince Blueblood, given your connection with the House of Platinum, I think you’d be interested in a new resurgence of historical nostalgia. We’ll be trading wider than ever and I have some ideas on where to look for the ancestral unicorn capital.”
Blueblood didn’t look impressed but Twilight continued gamely. “Count Silver, your family has been on the coast for practically forever and I know you like sailing so perhaps some maritime games, and the shipbuilding that goes along with it.”
Like Blueblood, Silver didn’t seem particularly excited about the implications of her proposal, so she turned to Malachite. “And the Malachites have been trying to expand Ruckrock for ages. With an upswing in demand for artisanal stone-”
“This is foal’s stuff,” she said dismissively, cutting Twilight off. “You’re missing the point entirely.”
“What point?” She blinked at them, feeling more than a little off-balance. They were not acting at all like she expected.
“The fact that there is now a unicorn goddess.” Silver said. “And we unicorns can retake our place as the rulers of all ponykind, the place we held in ages past.”
“Wait.” Twilight took a step back, head swimming.
“It’s obviously your destiny,” Duchess Platinum put in. “We had alicorns before, and look how that turned out.”
“Don’t -”
“It takes a unicorn to get anywhere. You’re the one that took care of Nightmare Moon and Discord,” she continued over Twilight’s protests.
“Stop -”
“It has to be us that leads Equestria. Celestia barely does anything, and Luna is completely incapable of rational decisions.”
Something snapped. Twilight’s eyes blazed, lighting up the room, and she stamped her hoof, making the city tremble in its foundations. Her divine essence sprang free, sending her mane and tail billowing in an etheric breeze as she was suddenly several sizes larger. Faint imperfections in the surrounding marble erased themselves and glass windows attained crystal clarity.
“STOP.” Twilight’s voice wasn’t so much loud as weighty, felt as much as heard, rippling outward with no concern for walls or floors, a vast wave echoing from Canterlot.
The other unicorns made no noise, no sound, no movement. She took a long breath, getting herself back under control, and nodded to them. “Thank you,” she said in a more mundane voice. “Now, I don’t think that you...”
She trailed off as she realized they were too still. They didn’t blink or breathe, frozen in mid-action. “Oh, no,” Twilight breathed, stepping forward and prodding the Duchess. There was no reaction, and she backed away, then turned and bounded out of the room, looking around wildly. Everywhere, ponies were still as statues. Pegasi hung in the air like oversized mobiles, unicorns and earth ponies were rooted to the ground, and the fountains outside stood still, the water like ice.
She turned full circle, then her horn glowed as she flashed to the top of the observatory, looking out over the spread of silent land below Canterlot. She reached into her divinity, spreading her consciousness out over the whole country. Not one blade of grass stirred, not one mote of dust floated in the wind, not one animal or pony breathed or moved or spoke.
The snow was melting in Draconia. Rivulets of cold, clear blue sprang from the patchy white blanket spread over the mountains and from the sheer faces of glaciers under daylight’s warmth, growing into frothing rivers latticed over the lowlands. Even in the dark and frozen north the sun visited occasionally.
Some times more literally than others. Celestia enjoyed the opportunity to stretch her wings, even if she had cheated a bit to get from the changeling hive to the dragon lands in the space of one night. Draconia itself had a rougher and more rugged beauty than her own Equestria, more appropriate to its inhabitants. Despite the far-off glint of sun on scale it was a pleasantly quiet and peaceful flight, giving her plenty of time to reflect and gather her thoughts together.
For Scar, she’d need them.
Of course, Scar wasn’t the only dragon she needed to see. His brother, the Lord of Earth and Water, was just as important as Scar himself to her inquiries, if not moreso. She knew Scar. She’d spoken and coordinated and connived and fought with and against him for centuries, but Moss, as Scar called him, had slammed down an iron curtain when he’d gained power, closing off Draconia from the world, and Celestia had never even met him face to face. She had met the ouroboros, but it only existed in the heart of the world, and had no connection to the dragons themselves. Besides, it was impossible to hold a conversation with.
She made no effort at stealth while approaching Eyrie Dracones. Scar would have known she was coming the moment she crossed the border, and he was the only one she would have cared to surprise. So of course she attracted attention as she drew near the enormous terraces of the mountain city, bright-scaled forms circling her curiously. There wasn’t the fear that the changelings had shown, but they were dragons. Even if they knew who and what she was, draconic pride and draconic arrogance would drive them to keep their dignity.
A guard appeared before her in a swirl of gold and grey armor, trumpeting challenge. “Halt and be recognized!” He thundered, glaring at her with slit-pupiled eyes.
She regarded him for a moment, a faint smile playing about her muzzle. “If you don’t already know, my name will mean nothing. But Scar knows who I am, and by now I am sure he is expecting me.”
“You will refer to our Lord of Air and Fire with respect,” the dragon growled, reaching out for her with one huge paw.
Sunlight caught on the edges of her feathers like soft rain, and her eyes flashed. She didn’t speak a word or move more than the beating of her wings, but the full presence of Sol Invictus bore down on the hapless dragon, and he paused.
“I have been friends with him for a very long time,” she said quietly. “And Scar wears that injury with pride. There is no disrespect between us. So please, take me to him.”
He stared at her for a moment, then finally tossed his head in a surprisingly equine gesture of frustration. “Very well,” he growled. “Come with me.”
A dragon flying through the skies over Canterlot would have caused widespread panic at the very least, but an alicorn over Eyrie Dracones garnered no more than disdainful curiosity. The two situations were not a precise mirror, but Celestia felt that the dragons should be something more than indifferent.
They went downward, but not far, for the citadel that topped Eyrie Dracones was nearly level with the peak of the mountain it was built into. The courtyard alone could have held Canterlot in its entirety, scalloped and sculpted and landscaped with water and lava, a strange blend of plant and crystal growing along the canals. Celestia’s hooves touched stone in front of an enormous entryway, tall enough to swallow Luna’s tower and guarded by two great steel slabs that made pretensions at being doors.
She strode ahead without waiting for the guard. She knew the way, and it was a long enough walk for dragons, let alone ponies. Here she drew more attention, draconic nobility staring as she passed through the rainbowed multitude of shining scales. The guard trailed uncertainly behind, giving her a thin veneer of authority, and Celestia’s confident walk completed the facade. None challenged her as she swept through the grand concourse and into the throne room.
It was far different than the worksponylike space where Celestia held court. Knots of dragons argued and debated, lounging in padded bowl-like seats and taking puffs from hookahs the size of carts. Runners carried messages between groups, offer and counteroffer, bribe and counterbribe, while here and there scribes recorded industriously in their books, some of paper and some of metal.
Musicians played in the background, sharp claws plucking at steel strings while fiery breath heated the instrument’s metal in short buffs, incorporating the changing tones and the unique sound of cooling metal into aimless melodies that never quite tipped over into discord. Dominating the left of the cruciform hall was a wide ring of water with a lush island in the center, filled with northern trees and flowers, while the right had a red ring of lava with a crystalline island, the minerals mimicking their plant counterparts.
At the very end of the massive chamber Scar lounged on an iron throne, presiding over the bedlam with a lazy insouciance. He wasn’t the focused core, like Celestia was when in her throne room, but his presence suffused the stone, the light, the conversation. There was no doubt that he was the beating heart of Draconia, and when he spoke everyone else was silent.
“Celestia!” He boomed as she crossed the threshold. “My dear friend! What an unexpected surprise.”
All heads turned to look at her, giving her a spectrum of both color and reaction. Surprise, surmise, and suspicion confronted her, but Scar’s welcome cleared the way for her. Her hooves rang on the the stone in the sudden silence as she stepped forward, picking her way toward the ancient throne. “Scar,” she acknowledged, her muzzle curling into a faint smile. “I would have sent word, but that would have made it official.”
“Ah, and if it were official they wouldn’t let us have any fun.” Scar slithered bonelessly off the throne and onto his feet, waiting as she strode down the long stretch of the hall. His blind eye looked out over the assembled dragons while the seeing one twinkled at her. The silence, if anything, grew with each step she took, until she stood before Scar, looking up at his massive head. “So what brings you to my fair city?” He prompted.
“I must speak with you. And Moss.” That broke the silence, finally, a soft wave of reaction that didn’t quite break into words.
Scar’s cheerful smile grew into a toothy grin. “Oho? Well, I suppose that is not a conversation meant for this audience.” He looked up at the crowd, twin curls of grey smoke leaking from his nostrils. “I shall be back later, then. Do try to refrain from breaking anything - or anyone - while I am gone.”
He turned and flowed back around the throne, moving less as a creature of flesh and blood than as a gust of wind. Celestia followed, familiar enough with his humour to know what was coming. She went airborne with a flick of her wings, and a gale howled out of nowhere, flinging both her and Scar upward and through an opening in the back wall, just barely missing the balcony before the wind deposited them on a lush carpet of grass in a brilliant mountaintop garden.
Slowly flowing lava pushed back the chill of the thin air, though neither she nor Scar strictly needed the heat. The garden itself had more of the characteristic half-plant, half-mineral growth of Eyrie Dracones, but the glade showed signs of Scar’s other interests. One of the steel-stringed instruments stood on a stand next to a pool of water, and a canvas lay discarded in a corner, half-shredded by frustrated claws. Celestia affected not to notice as Scar turned to her, all the humor gone from his expression.
“So,” he said. “All three of you are unbound.”
“Not precisely.” Celestia shook her head. “Twilight and Luna, yes. They wear no chains that they did not don themselves. But I -”
“You are out and about, and not even raising the sun in the mornings,” Scar said pointedly. “I can tell.”
“True,” she admitted. “But I’m not here from simple wanderlust.”
“Celestia,” he said gently. “I don’t believe you have done a spontaneous thing since they put that crown on your head. If you’re here, you have very good reason, and I am of course at your disposal. So much as I can be.”
“Thank you,” she said quietly. Unlike the other gods she’d seen, Scar was a friend and sort of co-conspirator, even if he could never be an ally. “And Moss?”
“I can bring him.” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “But neither you nor I can force him to speak to you.”
“That can wait. Perhaps you can satisfy my questions yourself.”
“Questions, hmm?” He paced over to a lounging sofa, warmed by the sun, and slid into it, half-reclining. “They must be questions for you and not Equestria. How long has it been since you could separate one from the other?”
“L'État, c'est moi?” Celestia shook her head. “I’ve always kept myself separate from Equestria, if sometimes only just. Else I could not have engineered an Equestria without me, as it is now.”
“Without you, perhaps, but as you said yourself, it was your planning. Your design, even now.”
“Which is part of the problem,” Celestia said wryly. “Equestria has been running to my design for so long that it has not had a chance to become something else.”
“That old saw again?” He lifted an eyeridge at her. “Surely you didn’t come all this way to cry on my shoulder.”
“Of course not.” She shook her head at Scar in admonishment. “I am trying to decide whether or not I have made a mistake.”
“With Twilight Sparkle?”
“Not just her. All of it.” Celestia settled down on the soft grass, looking at Scar. “I committed myself to all the gambles I took centuries ago, because I knew Equestria needed two gods. But now that the time is at hoof, I wonder if I did not miss another option.”
“Knowing you, that’s ominous.” His tone was light, but his good eye was keen, focused steadily on the alicorn before him.
“You shouldn’t be concerned. You already thought of it yourself.”
He growled softly, a dragon’s snarl that was felt more than heard. “Then I am more concerned. Spike is my loophole. My escape hatch. My retirement policy. And that is dependant on you.”
“Twilight now,” she replied, merely correcting, not disagreeing. “Her magic hatched him and while she and I raised him, Spike falls under her auspice and not mine. When the time comes, if it comes, for him to challenge you, she will have to haul that yoke and not I.”
“I see.” He growled again, but this time it was more content. “So long as you are honoring our bargain. But then, I do not see what you are intending.”
“Twilight is a god now,” she said. “And she will make mistakes. All of us do. But she is not constrained as we are, so her mistakes may be...broader. And her mistakes will affect the whole of Equestria. Yes, she keeps Luna whole and sane, but what will she do to the rest of Equestria? They never asked for her. They never asked for Nightmare Moon, for that matter. The question I must ask is whether there should be gods at all.”
Scar stared at her for a long, silent moment, then snorted softly. “And if the answer is no, what do you intend? To erase all the gods of this planet, peel it from its source of magic and hurl it into the void?”
“Possibly,” Celestia said calmly. “It has been done. But I need to understand we gods better than I do before I can consider anything. So I come with questions.”
“What questions could possibly be worthy of such a goal?” His serious expression slid into the more usual smirk.
“What are you to your subjects?”
“Well. That is a good one.” He considered. “Dragons think themselves close to gods to begin with, so my brother and I are not as far distant from our subjects as you and Luna - and Twilight - are from yours. Perhaps if they were less arrogant we would be something more, something to compare with Sun and Moon.” There was no bitterness in his voice, merely calm fact.
“But we are more. Stronger. More powerful. Perhaps more intelligent, and certainly less petty. Without us they would collapse into squabbling and Draconia would be dust and ash in a century. There’s too much of the need to show strength ingrained in them for anything else. We give them a strength they can depend on without grinding them into nothingness ourselves. Something to strive against that will not yield.”
“But if that’s how dragons are, how do you possibly expect Spike and Twilight to change them? I don’t believe either of them could play the part of the tyrant.”
“We are all defined by our limits. Moss and I provide a conflict-shaped home for them. We can do no other.” Scar shook his head. “You are proof enough that strength does not need to walk in step with force.”
“You don’t seem to have that problem with me.” Celestia’s tone was mild, but her eyes were sharp and challenging.
Scar put his claw to the long path of ridged flesh winding along his muzzle. “Ah, but you did defeat me. I tested my strength against you once, and that has satisfied me.”
“So I did.” Celestia had no scars from that encounter, but she found her hoof pressed against her muzzle anyway, in sympathy for Scar’s namesake. “But you seem to agree that there should not be gods at all, if we keep our subjects so constrained.”
“Oh no.” He showed his teeth. “We are far more than just parents or guardians, aren’t we? We are a truth. And perhaps that should have been my answer. For good and for ill, we are what is true in this world and without us those truths would shatter into a thousand, thousand pieces. And where would that leave them? Scattered, lost, alone.”
“That seems to be a theme,” Celestia sighed. “I have already spoken with Chrysalis, née Rosedust, and They of the Zebras. Would you like to hear what they have to say?”
“How could I resist? We gods are like the most distant of family. We know of each other, but we never talk or write.”
“Would Moss?”
Scar wrinkled his muzzle in brief thought, then flowed out of the couch. “Hold,” he said, and was gone.
Celestia waited patiently, taking a closer look at the massive draconic sitar and watching koi swim in the pool. Of the brothers, Moss was more conservative and stubborn, reflecting his charge of earth, while Scar was more quixotic and impulsive. She deeply respected Scar’s intelligence, but Moss might have some more reasoned insights on the nature of godhood. If he would speak.
There was nothing to announce the arrival of the dragon brothers other than their sudden presence, entering the garden side by side. Celestia turned to get her first view of the Lord of Earth and Water. She’d had his description from Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, of course, but it had been no more than a welter of confused impressions.
There was a definite family resemblance between the two, but where Scar was lithe and graceful, Moss was bulky and powerful, solid as a mountain and nearly as large. He eyed her with clear disfavor, but crossed over the expanse of manicured lawn toward her without hesitation. Scar resumed his seat, but Moss disdained the furniture to lower himself onto the soft grass near the pool, not far from where she stood. “Do you have any idea,” he growled. “How terrifying you are to the rest of us?”
Celestia lifted her eyebrows at him. “Do tell.”
“We’re supposed to keep to our people, our borders.” He waved his claws at the garden they were in, representing Draconia. “But you send your sister and your student to involve us in some insane metaphysical scheme. You break all the rules of godhood by arranging for a mortal to ascend, and now you’ve completely slipped your leash.” He glowered at Scar. “This is precisely why I cut off contact with ponykind. They’re far too dangerous.”
Scar tilted his head, regarding Moss. “You said it was because they were too weak and unbecoming of our attention.”
“An appeal to draconic arrogance.” Moss waved it away. “If they ever saw that simple ponies were more powerful than they, it’d shatter their world - and us along with it! And then there’d be nobody to pick up the pieces.”
“Except ponies,” Celestia put in pointedly.
Moss turned the glare on her. “Precisely.”
“Scar seemed to think you wouldn’t speak to me,” Celestia observed, her head tilted slightly as she eyed Moss.
“He has an exaggerated idea of my habits,” Moss snorted. “But were I at the head instead of the tail, it would be different.”
Celestia merely nodded. She well knew how easily it was to misjudge someone you had known for thousands of years. “So I take it you think gods are necessary.”
“Of course. That’s why we’re here.” He shook his head at her. “They need us. Mortals are squabbling, fractious children otherwise. Even the wisest never really understand what can happen over generations and see beyond their own desires.”
“That’s comprehensive enough,” she allowed, casting a look at Scar. He had a scowl to match his brother’s, albeit for a very different reason. It was a strange mirror of her relationship with Luna, and she was grateful that ponies preferred harmony to the dragon’s serial dissent. “Though it begs the question of how much we have changed them. When Rosedust became Chrysalis, all of her subjects changed too. And became even more dependant on their god. What were dragons before you? What were ponies before me? Perhaps by our heights we bring them lower than they should be.”
“Has anything like that happened with Twilight’s ascension?” Scar asked, preempting further sour words from Moss.
“No. Whatever effects there may be are more subtle.” Celestia shook her head. “If we are, as you say, truths, it is true that she went from mortal to god. I would think that would broaden what ponies are capable of, not narrow it.”
“Perhaps she changed gods, instead.” Moss growled. “Why else would you be asking these questions?”
Celestia’s world shuddered down to its very roots. It had been a long time since she had suffered a real surprise, not just the unexpected but the unexpectable, and if she had been standing it would have sent her to her knees. The world swam in her vision as half-formed thoughts and concepts and ideas wrestled with her. It seemed as if she was going down for the third time when Scar’s voice cut through the haze. “Celestia!”
She looked up, and noted absently that both the dragons were on the far side of the garden, protecting their eyes - or eye, in Scar’s case - with a foreleg, and the iron couch was beginning to glow and slump. Calmly, neatly, and precisely she gathered up her spilled power and brought it back where it belonged, dimming the novae incandescence and stilling the fiery lashing of her tail and mane.
“I am profoundly sorry,” she said, looking sadly about the ruined garden as she picked herself delicately out of a cobweb-cracked crater of black glass. The grass was gone, mere ash scorched on baked earth, and the pond boiled dry. The crystal flora had survived, but its greener counterpart was in flames. “I...have not had a shock like that for millennia.”
She drew another glower from Moss, but no words as he padded forward and stretched out a claw. Water poured from it into the pool, though there was no reviving the fish, and the ground shivered as his power rippled outward. The hard-baked earth churned back into moist, rich soil while Scar put out the fires with a soft ripple of presence. A soft zephyr brought a procession of wind-borne seeds streaming down from the sky, and where they touched earth they sprouted. Celestia watched as, working in quiet concert, the Lord of Air and Fire and the Lord of Earth and Water brought the garden back to life.
“I am sorry.” She said again, and a touch more formally than before. “I have not lost control like that for millennia. I had allowed for understanding when I began asking my questions, but I was not prepared for revelation. If there are any reparations I can make, you need only ask.”
“We’ve done worse, in our time,” Scar said mildly, but his eye was wary as he watched her.
“If you intend to have any more epiphanies,” Moss growled. “Please go elsewhere.”
Celestia bowed her head, chastened. “I shall. Thank you both for your time, and your words.”
“This is not good. This is very not good.” Twilight pranced nervously in place, looking over the frozen Equestria spread out before her, then suddenly froze in place again. “Luna!”
A flash of light brought her to the Lunar barracks, where soldiers stood as frozen statues. Seated among them, captured in the middle of a laugh, her head flung back and her eyes sparkling, was Luna, unmoving. Twilight moved slowly and carefully toward her, feeling as if she were intruding on some private moment, a trespasser in a hall of statues.
She tentatively reached out to brush Luna’s cheek, but shuddered and pulled back when she found it still soft under her hoof. Statues would have been terrible enough, but there was something even worse about ponies who still felt alive and simply did not move. “Oh Luna, what do I do?” She asked, expecting no response and getting none.
She at the same time wanted to curl into a ball and empty her stomach out the window. Then she wanted to find Celestia and beg her to fix everything. Not too far from the surface was a frightened foal, bawling because she’d accidentally broken her mother’s jewelry box, and Twilight found herself curled up on the floor, fighting off a flood of tears. Her expression ticked back and forth between manic grin and pained grimace with metronome regularity while her brain ran in panicked circles, trying to flee from scene confronting her.
“No,” she muttered, forcing herself to her feet. “No no no. I will fix this. I will. I just. Take a deep breath, Twilight. You have time.” She laughed, a hollow and forlorn sound. “You have plenty of time! Nopony’s going anywhere.”
She shook her head hard, as if she could clear it with physical force. “All right, all right. I told everything to stop. Maybe I can tell it go.”
Slowly, cautiously, she stretched out all her senses, letting the cloak of divinity enfold her, accepting the shift in perceptions that came with it as she gathered her thoughts. “Um,” she said. “Go.”
Nothing happened. But she hadn’t really expected it to. The mistake hadn’t been a simple command, but a desperate surge of emotion that had crossed all the barriers she kept up between herself and the unexplored core of her godhead.
Luna and Celestia alike had cautioned her against reaching too far out into the vasty expanse of the divine. Neither of them embraced their god entire very often, and Luna had mentioned that even her experience with the Elements of Harmony was a mere taste in comparison. And she’d taken it to heart; even the spectacle in the library was more flash than substance, a finely focused trickle of what lay within her.
There were no books to guide her, no studies or treatises. Neither Celestia nor Luna had any words that properly described, encapsulated, conveyed the experience. The royal sisters, as close as two gods could be, were still utterly different. All of which left Twilight on her own when it came to understanding what she had become. She wasn’t alone, but the best anypony could do to help her swim those waters was shout advice from the shore.
It was not far different, she thought, from the way Luna had put off addressing her guards and her subjects. But Luna hadn’t waited until it was far too late. Twilight paced the room, making a wide path around the frozen forms of the guards, the tapping of her hooves the only sound in existence. Her jaw worked with soundless self-recrimination, the words not making it out past a firmly closed muzzle, until finally she realized she was only delaying further.
She stopped in front of Luna, the alicorn held suspended in a moment of joy and triumph. A moment Luna had all too few of, and one she’d ruined in a moment of pique. “I’ll make it up to you,” she promised, even knowing Luna couldn’t possibly hear her.
Twilight teleported again, back to the highest tower in Canterlot, and planted her hooves firmly on the stone as she looked out over the kingdom. She had no idea what she would do to fix things, but she had to do something, and no simple spell would do.
She took a deep breath, in and out, closing her eyes and looking inward. It was like opening a long series of doors, sinking through a very deep lake, opening a thousand books, and casting ten thousand spells, all at once. She had been braced for some overwhelming thunder of sensation or power, an impossible tide of some strange force. But it was just her, all the way down.
Equestria lay hushed around her, silenced by the blanket of her presence. She covered the land - mountain, lake, field, and river - from one end of Equestria’s expanse to the other. Her power, her magic, mixed with that of Equestria’s, a living drive wheel to power all the interconnected pieces. And it wasn’t just hers. Luna’s own dark godhead was threaded throughout the complex intermeshing that made up the kingdom’s soul, matched with Twilight’s, the two of them together shaping and supporting the underpinnings of every pony’s life.
For every pony was there. Each stallion, mare, and foal was part of that network, contributing to a living machine - even though that word was inadequate to the task - that drove and was driven by the collective life of Equestria. Shining threads connected to the few ponies outside the borders of their nation, salted across the globe and contrasting the other powers that claimed their place. There was the dark scar of the Everfree, crouched and glowering in the middle of Equestria. Across the sea there was the stark sweep of Zebrica, black and white, white and black, and the patchwork of Saddle Arabia. And deep down below the air and water, in the molten oceans of the planet’s core there was something old and iron, spinning patiently in place.
But the mountainous island of the gryphons held only a terrible emptiness, other than the few bright specks of pony ambassadors. There were gryphons of course, but no god touched them, no divinity shielded or supported them. It was a hole in the world, some strange wound that made her shudder and draw back.
She turned away deliberately, for she had work to do. Any mysteries of the world, fair or foul, would have to wait for her to work a miracle and bring Equestria back to where it was supposed to be. She drew strength from within herself, stretching her whole mind over the convoluted confusion and picking at the halted drivetrain of the country. She couldn’t simply unchain herself, as thoroughly as she was intertwined. That would tear Equestria asunder, and she had no idea how Celestia had managed the feat without cracking the world open like a rotten egg.
Like many acts of impulsive casting, her one slip had turned a complexly ordered system into an utter mess. With her senses truly flung wide she could feel the wellspring of her godhood feeding into the land’s own magic, where it mixed with Luna’s and where it touched everything within its borders. Where it should have nourished and aided, it hindered instead, locking everything into a single moment, the inertia of an entire country stopped dead without the slightest strain.
She began picking at the gears, untangling the pieces of misapplied magic around her erg by erg, molecule by molecule. The natural motion of magic began again, and a whisper of an errant breeze tugged at her mane before vanishing again, butting up against the edge of the bubble of time she’d reclaimed. “All right,” she said aloud. “I can do that.”
Twilight bent back to the task with more assurance, her confidence building as her sphere of living air grew, slowly at first but expanding in great leaps as she became more practiced. As she worked through the mechanisms of Equestria though, she noticed that quite a lot of it was rough. Messy. Inefficient. Magics and powers clashing and struggling, small things out of place, coarse meshings between parts.
She wondered why Celestia had never done anything about it, but then, it was entirely possible she didn’t even know. Each god was unique, so perhaps this view of Equestria, the way everything fit together, was something only she had. And if that were true, then it fell to her to do something about it.
She began cleaning it up as she went along, cleaning and organizing all the little details. It wasn’t difficult work, just exacting, but it was exactly the sort of thing she enjoyed. Confident that she could not only fix her mistake but make up for it by addressing a heretofore unknown problem, she worked through an ever-widening area, repairing and correcting.
It took forever. It took ages. It took perhaps ten minutes to expand her bubble of air to the whole of Equestria, straightening out the last few dots around outlying ponies with a flourish and drawing a deep breath, looking down at a no longer motionless city.
She hesitated over what to do first, but after a few moment’s thought decided she had to return to the meeting she’d abandoned, as much as she preferred to check on Luna. Another flash of lavender magic returned her to the meeting room, where the unicorns were standing just where she’d left them. But they turned to face her as she appeared, stopping the first incipient resurgence of panic before it even started, and she gave them as sincere a smile as she could manage under the circumstances. “Sorry about that,” she said brightly. “Just a...slight emergency. Now, where were we?”
It was only when she received speechless stares in reply that she realized she was looking down at them, instead of their eyes being at a level. She gathered up all her blazing power, flushed red at having forgotten to bring it under control yet again, and packed it away so she was once again simply the unicorn Twilight Sparkle. “Sorry, sorry,” she apologized.
“It is fine, Twilight Sparkle,” Blueblood said in an entirely calm tone. The rest of them, she saw, were no longer alarmed either, now that she’d reigned in her aura, and she decided that it must not have been overwhelming as the first time she’d forgotten.
She smiled gratefully at him. “Right then. Back to what we were discussing. All I want is for you to come back to court!”
“Of course, Twilight Sparkle.”
She blinked. Given their attitudes before, she hadn’t expected such capitulation. But then, maybe they were somewhat shaken by the remnants of whatever they’d experienced in her inadvertent freezing of Equestria's time. “Well, good!” She certainly wasn’t about to waste such agreement. “I’ll see you there, then.”
“Yes, Twilight Sparkle.”
Twilight hesitated. There was still something odd about their acquiescence, and she looked over their calm, attentive gazes. “Is everything all right?”
“Everything is fine,” Platinum said, and the rest echoed the sentiment in a chorus of unruffled serenity.
“Okay then!” Duty performed, she scurried from the room, off to find Luna and inform her of the success.
There was, even in the dead of night, the noise of ponies talking as they went about their duties in the vast castle at the center of Canterlot, but it was absent now. There were ponies, certainly, and they were moving as they should. But there was no conversation, no idle banter or argument, no laughter or hastily shouted afterthoughts. They simply walked in silence, only deigning to notice each other in order to avoid collision.
She slowed down and stopped at the base of the stairs, watching ponies pass by with a vague sense of unease. Finally she stopped a courier that seemed passingly familiar as he reached the landing, stepping in front of his path. “Excuse me,” she said. “Is everything alright?”
He looked at her, betraying no surprise at the interruption. Or indignation, or annoyance. “Everything is fine.”
“But nobody is talking or anything. It’s just...so quiet.”
The courier waited silently, apparently not seeing that as needing a reply. Twilight shifted uncomfortably and finally stepped out of the way. “Never mind. Thank you.”
“You are welcome,” he said politely and continued on.
She watched him depart, the beginnings of worry slipping away as she realized that everything must indeed be fine. Everypony was calm and collected, after all. With that affirmation she climbed the stairs to the barracks and knocked on the door. “Is Luna there?” She asked, peering past the Lunar guard that answered.
“No, she is not,” he replied calmly. And stopped, adding nothing else to explain or dismiss. He simply stood, waiting patiently.
“Well where is she?”
“I don’t know,” he said in the same unruffled tone.
Twilight nodded understandingly, turning to head off down the halls in search of the misplaced alicorn. “Luna!” She called. “Luna! Where are you?”
There was no answer, and Twilight paced through the tower, calling Luna’s name at intervals. Nopony gave her any notice as she worked her way upward, for Luna’s name was not theirs. Only when Twilight stepped through the door to their private chambers did the alicorn look up from the stack of paperwork she was working through. “Yes, Twilight?”
“There you are. Are you alright?” There was something that nagged at her about the sight of Luna simply signing papers.
“I am fine, Twilight,” Luna replied calmly, and Twilight’s shook her head, feeling unsettled.
“What’s going on, Luna? Why are you acting this way?” Twilight demanded, not really expecting an answer.
“I am signing papers. It is what I’m supposed to do.” The answer betrayed no puzzlement, or impatience, or any emotion whatsoever. It was fact, and fact alone, and that was not Luna.
Twilight sat down heavily, not even bothering to close the door. Luna turned back to her work, and Twilight simply watched, an unidentifiable emotion rising within her. It simply wasn’t fair, she decided, after all the panic and triumph, after fixing the entire kingdom piece by tiny piece, to return to this. She watched a distorted image of her Luna quietly and efficiently working through papers, without complaint or consideration, as if she were just some cog in an enormous machine.
“Oh, no.” She spoke before the conscious realization was fully on her, but then it came all in a flash. Luna was indeed operating as a cog. She had no other choice. Twilight had removed the possibility for anything else.
She shuddered, shivered, and fell as the revelation blazed through her, and she lashed out at the walls she’d built around herself, shattering them before the last vestiges of choice were closed off from her. Of course she hadn’t given thought to the strange and unponylike behavior of every stallion and mare she’d run across, for she’d made it nothing to be questioned. She’d made it so there was nothing to prevent Equestria from functioning smoothly and without incident.
She stood, hooves planted, eyes closed, and breathing slowly. “Why,” she asked plaintively. “Does this have to be so hard?” Her voice cracked at the last word, her fur standing on end from the aftershocks of understanding.
No answer came from Luna, who seemed to not have even heard her. Which was possible, now that she thought about it. If it wasn’t part of running Equestria smoothly, it wasn’t something that existed. Her will kept the rules she had established at bay, but nopony else had a chance.
She was still worrying at that particular bit when she became aware that Luna had opened the door, prepared to head out to who knew where. “Wait,” she said, and Luna paused obediently in the doorway. “Okay. Hang on. I’m going to fix this. Again.”
Twilight let her godhood blossom again, looking out at the vast expanse of the perfectly meshing magics, then reached out and stopped Equestria’s clock. It was cleaner this time, simply one hoof on the mainspring, and everything halted. There was no fuss, no messiness, simply one singular act of will.
She didn’t yet have a clear idea of what she was going to do, but she knew that the longer ponies were trapped by the confines of her mistake the harder it would be to undo. As it was, there was nothing to make Twilight’s changes stand out from the natural background of the living Equestria.
She studied the frozen dynamics, her attention riffling through the suppressed hopes and fears and desires of all the ponies under her care. They were still fundamentally the same, even if they couldn’t express it. Twilight breathed a soft sigh of relief that, no matter what she’d done, there hadn’t been any direct harm to any ponies. Just a brief inconvenience, so long as she could wipe away the changes she’d wrought.
Of course, doing just that was the trick. She paced back and forth in the frozen room, wishing she had Spike to talk to. Or at least talk at, if nothing else. Instead, after another few paces, she went back to examining the living mechanism that she had to fix, frowning as she concentrated. Surely there had to be a solution.
Her hooves measured the length of the room twice more before she stopped, disparate thoughts coalescing into a plan of action. It wasn’t the best plan she’d ever come up with, but it would have to do. She reached out, bringing all the power of her godhood to bear, and began to systematically destroy all the rules and limitations that shaped Equestria.
Since she hadn’t changed the ponies, the natural patterns should re-establish themselves soon enough, and aside from some minor confusion there would be no harm done. She hoped.
She took one last look over the frozen landscape, took a deep breath, and let time resume.
“Twilight? What…?” Luna took a step toward her, shaking her head as if trying to clear it of cobwebs. “What happened? Wha-eep!” She squealed as Twilight’s flying leap of a hug sent them both tumbling over the floor.
“Thank Harmony you’re back!” Twilight clung to the no-longer-larger pony, her muzzle buried in Luna’s neck. “I made a huge mistake and - hold on I still need to make sure -” She cut herself off, sorting hastily through the blurred wheels of Equestria in motion. Ponies wobbled a bit without support but inertia kept them approximately where they should have been. Approximately.
Luna watched, amused and bemused, as Twilight abandoned her frantic affections to restore the guides and guards that kept Equestria going, lest somepony find they could not get a cutie mark, or that their special talent no longer worked. Or pegasi began to fall from the sky, or wendigos appeared out of nowhere, or who knew what else.
She hammered in the last pegs, watching anxiously to make sure nothing and nopony broke from the strain of the restored system. When everything seemed stable, if not perfect, she let out a breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding and finally looked down at Luna. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to, but it just happened!”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Luna said with a small, self-satisfied smile. “But I do know you look absolutely amazing.”
“What?” Twilight stared, feeling suddenly hot, and Luna captured Twilight’s muzzle, pulling her down for a kiss.
When their muzzles finally parted again, Luna’s smile had grown to a grin. “You look positively radiant, dear Twilight,” she said with a modest lilt to her voice. “Why have I not seen you like this before?”
“I, um.” Between the sudden change of topic and Luna’s kiss she found it hard to string coherent thoughts together, and all the expanded consciousness of a god didn’t seem to help. If anything it made it worse, with Luna’s dark swirling divinity pressing against hers in a metaphysical mirror of their bodies.
“I made a mistake, Luna,” she finally got out. “I...broke Equestria. And had to fix it.”
“Moodkiller,” Luna accused lightly, the look in her eyes changing from flirtatious to sympathetic even though she kept her hold on Twilight. “What happened? I felt something, but I wasn’t sure…”
Twilight spilled the story in a dozen disjointed sentences, clinging to Luna as the recitation made her realize again how thoroughly her mistake could have gone wrong. “What do I do? How do I tell them...how can I even start to apologize? What do you say after you’ve hurt so many ponies?”
“You’re asking me?” Luna’s voice was low, sweet and deadly.
“You’re the only pony who might possibly understand,” Twilight said miserably.
There was a long silence. Finally Luna sighed, running her hoof through Twilight’s mane. “Oh, Twilight. I never found a way. That’s the gulf between god and mortal. Everything we do affects so many, so profoundly. A word, a gesture, an offhoof decision could ruin or exalt a life, or ten, or a thousand. How could you ever encompass that in words?”
“There’s always a way,” Twilight protested. “There has to be. I don’t know what it is but I need to at least explain. Even if I can’t figure it out now I will eventually. Even if it hasn’t been done before. Being a god has to be good for something, right?”
“If you must be a god, you must be a god,” Luna told her. “I may have ulterior motives,” she added with a grin. “For having you keep this more celestial form. But being a god is simply being who you are. Never try to be less than that.”
“Duties, I can handle. But can I look this way without scaring ponies? I don’t want to do that! That isn’t who I am.”
“That is just a matter of control.” Luna rubbed her muzzle against Twilight’s. “That, I can help with.”
“And then we can figure out a way to explain what I did to your subjects.” She smiled wryly, relaxing against Luna.
“Our subjects, I think. You may not be a princess officially, but you’re doing as much as I am. If not more.”
“Our subjects, then.” A small shiver ran through her from horn to hoof at the phrase. “Yes. Let’s talk.”
Celestia winged over the water, the weight of more than just her body pulling her down. Heavy thoughts dragged at her as she banked down toward the high mountains of the griffon’s home, flying as much by memory as by sight. None saw her, despite the circling sentries, for where she was going she neither wanted nor needed an escort.
She landed atop a high peak, powdered snow crunching under her hooves. It was small and bare, the only thing of note an ancient standing stone, weathered to the point that the single word carved into it was barely readable. Gently, carefully, Celestia brushed off the thin coating of snow with her wing, clearing it away from the ancient symbols. Gently, carefully, she sat down in front of it, regarding it for seconds that stretched to minutes, minutes that stretched to hours. Finally, she spoke.
“Aquila.”
“You know, they say you die twice. Once when you stop breathing, and again, much later, when somebody says your name for the last time.”
Celestia smiled at him, a faint, sad smile. “I believe I quoted that for you, before the end.”
“That you did.” He shook his head at her. “I know it was meant well, but it’s not exactly reassuring.”
“I wish I had something better to tell you.” Her smile faded. “But I’m afraid that sometimes even I am at a loss for answers.”
“I know. And that is why you have come to me, yes?” He lifted bushy eyebrows at her. “A lack of answers.”
“I could have come just to pay my respects,” she demurred, but he waved a chiding claw at her.
“You only come to talk when you have troubles,” he said, disarming the words with a smile. “You are a good pony, Celestia, but you have so many of your own concerns. Nobody could expect you to make the trek out here merely to brush the snow off my tombstone. Especially not I.”
“But who else would do it?” Celestia sighed and conceded the argument before he could reply. “And yet, you’re right. I have troubles. Not mere war or monsters or the end of all things. I’ve graduated to issues of my own creation these days. And less tractable ones.”
“Less tractable than a chaos demon ready to destroy the world?” Aquila murmured, his eyes bright. “My dear Celestia, what have you been up to?”
“Everything,” she said with another hint of a smile. “You know me. I scheme in my sleep.”
“Yes, and I always said it would get you in trouble.” He clicked his beak at her disapprovingly. “It seems I was right.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “I’ve been at it for thousands of years. I’d be surprised if you were wrong.”
“No you wouldn’t be.” He grinned at her. “Pleased, but not surprised. You always took mistakes more personally than you should.”
“Than I should? My mistakes hurt others, not myself.” She lifted her eyebrows at him. “You never have won this argument.”
“You mean you’ve never conceded it.” Aquila was unimpressed. “You may have more responsibility than the average pony, true, but that doesn’t make you unique.”
“That may be true,” Celestia said, unconvinced. “But given that responsibility, what troubles I do have - or create - are the most extraordinary ones.”
He snorted. “Fine, fine. Tell me about your extraordinary troubles.”
“There is a new god,” she said after a meditative pause.
“Another one? A new Discord?” He cocked his head at her, eyes focused and alert.
“No, not a new Discord, thank Harmony. This one’s my doing. Or maybe my fault. It’s my student, Twilight Sparkle.”
“A pony?” He blinked, not so much in surprise but to focus more keenly on her. “A new pony god? That’s hardly fair, is it? Most peoples get two. Or one.” There was only a touch of bitterness in his voice, but it was enough to make Celestia wince.
“I have done my best, Aquila. But they are not my subjects. My choices are even more limited than usual.”
“They are my children, Celestia.” He turned to look over the rugged peaks and the soaring aeries of the gryphon homeland. “It is hard seeing them fade while your ponies grow and thrive and, it seems, breaking all the laws of our world to do so.”
“They are not gone yet,” she said quietly. “So there is still hope. More now, I think, than before.”
“Oh? And how does a pony - a problematic pony god, no less - represent hope for my gryphons?”
“It is a fact, or perhaps a truth, that we do not change. You know that more keenly than any of us.”
“I ought to,” Aquila said dryly, casting a glance at his tombstone.
“And yet, here I am. Equestria is not at my back or in my veins. I am not raising the sun or setting it. I am not in Gryphonia for matters of state or diplomatic negotiations. I am talking to you simply because I wanted to visit an old friend.” She offered him a faint smile. “Can you imagine me doing that even a hundred years ago?”
He opened his beak and then closed it with a sharp clack. “A hundred years ago you would have found an excuse. If you could. But if you could not, then...no.”
“Just so. It may be that it is simply because I can leave Equestria to Luna and Twilight, but I think there is something deeper at work.” She shook her head ruefully. “Even I have trouble picking apart all the subtleties in the undercurrents of the world. Especially when they apply to me. I knew things would change when Luna returned; I was prepared for that. But with Twilight…”
“Twilight being this student god of yours.”
“Emphasis on student. You two would have gotten along famously. Well, assuming she could get over records kept on vellum.” Celestia dismissed the aside with a wave of her hoof. “Twilight’s role - that’s not the right term. Her type of influence, I suppose, is not clear to me. But if she is capable of changing me, then the entire world may be balanced on the edge of a blade. She could erase all the order that keeps us from collapsing into despair and dissolution without even realizing it.”
The beaked smile that Aquila gave her in reply was equal parts lazy and hungry. “So you made, no matter how, someone who can not only contest your power, but also someone whose influence is out of sight of your all-seeing eye. My, my, that’s most unlike you. Were you that desperate?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” His eyes widened and the smile dropped off his face. “For Luna, then? Or Equestria? No, it would have to be both.” As always, he saw right through her. “You couldn’t lose either, so you gambled everything on a third option. Gambled, and lost?”
“Not yet, but I fear it might become so.”
“Fear? That’s very unlike you. I thought you had no fears.”
She sighed. “I have many these days. Words said in anger, or left unsaid in fear. Thoughtless slights and needless jealousies. These are things I cannot address, not with all the power in the world. I would rather deal with a real villain than all the thousand things that poison the mind and dull the soul.”
“That’s unusually gloomy for the living sun.”
Celestia pursed her lips in a brief, self-mocking moue. “Indulge my melodrama. It is relevant to the topic at hoof.”
Aquila laughed. “Oh great Celestia, surely you are the most unfortunate, the most put-upon, the most long-suffering, the most - “
“Hush.” She gave him her best scowl, though it was spoiled somewhat by the corners of her muzzle twitching upward. “You would interrupt a perfectly good mope. Do you know how long it’s been since I last had one?”
“I’m sure you’ve been counting the minutes.”
Celestia snorted. “Dramatics aside, it really is a concern. The only option I saw was flawed from the start. In order to find a companion for Luna, I would have to make one, for there were no other gods or immortals. But since it was my doing, it poisoned all the bonds that have sprung from it.”
“As if there wasn’t enough bad blood between you two.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Celestia snapped. “And now it’s not just her, but Twilight. And worse, whatever lies between them.”
She took a slow breath, the only sound the whisper of errant wind and the hush of falling snow. She hadn’t expected her nerves to be so raw, not after the distance she’d put between herself and Canterlot. But the wound was there, just as fresh as it had been when she’d confessed to them, when she’d decided on Twilight, when she’d known she had to plan for Luna’s return.
Celestia had judged Luna, and found her wanting.
She had never wanted to, but her hoof had been forced. In one moment she had broken the equality between them and crippled their relationship forever. They were meant to be equal, but the moment she had claimed victory something had shuddered, shifted, and shattered. She was the older one, but she should never have been the elder one.
Yet she was still running Luna’s life as if she were another subject. More closely than one, even, for she could not trust that any excesses on Luna’s part would be curbed by other ponies or Equestria itself. The only things keeping Luna in check were Luna herself, and Celestia.
And she hated thinking of Luna that way. Luna was her sister. Her family. Her constant companion from moment they’d come into being. The only one she could rely on to be there, to understand, to laugh and tell jokes, to argue and stubbornly oppose. To be her counterweight and undying light among the flickering flames of mortality. To think of her as anything less was cosmically, intrinsically wrong.
And yet, and yet, and yet. It always spiraled down to the hard truth that she had no choice. No matter how raw the wound, it was one she could only try to ignore. To look at Luna’s face and having the joy of sisterhood dimmed by knowing she could no longer trust was a pain that couldn’t be addressed or salved, merely endured.
That wasn’t the end of it, either. Bad enough that she had to hold that distance, but she had to worsen it. And not by an accident that could be forgiven, but by deliberate plan. She had engineered this hurt, for all of them.
For she had brought Twilight in. Or let Twilight in, past her masks, her defenses, the roles she played for every pony in Equestria. She’d allowed Twilight to give her hope, even though she knew what was coming. She could have stood the pain of yet another friend, yet another favored student, but Twilight had become even more than that, and they would both have to live with the consequences for a very long time indeed.
“You have to trust them, you know.”
She looked at Aquila silently, neither encouraging nor discouraging.
“All the world knows that Celestia always performs her duties.” The words could have been mocking, but they weren’t. “And for now, at least, it is your duty to be mistrustful of what they might do to Equestria. But it is not your duty to be mistrustful of what they might do to you.”
“I suppose if I did not want the truth, I wouldn’t have come to you.” She sighed. “So I can neither deny the duty to do the unpleasant nor use it as a shield against the same. It seems fitting.”
Her discussions with the other gods had been important. Vital, even. She had needed to know more about gods and their peoples, both for her sake and for Twilight’s. Changes on the order of a mortal ascending to godhood happened but once or twice in the history of Creation, and it was imperative Celestia be prepared for whatever might come.
Twilight would really have been a better candidate to investigate the nature of gods. Learning was in her blood, whereas Celestia was no better equipped than the average pony. Still, everything she’d found, every word and attitude and answer, had driven her toward one conclusion.
Gods were inseparable from their peoples. There was no trick, no fine print, no way to wriggle out of it. Even cheating as flagrantly as she was, she was still the sun, still order and duty to her ponies. Which meant that despite the half-threat she’d given the dragon brothers, she could not take any other path but to adjust to the situation she’d created. Duty, then, bade her return.
She didn’t want to. She wasn’t ready to, if nothing else because she was not settled in her own mind, but it was more fear that kept her away. Fear of what they might say to her upon her return.
“If you could take it all back,” Aquila said. “Would you?”
Celestia eyed him sharply. That was a dangerous question. It begged a decision, one on which she could and would not renege, and so instead of answering she was silent for a time. Again there was no noise on the mountaintop, and no motion but for the steadily falling snow building up around the base of the obelisk. The flakes collapsed into rain before they reached her coat, refreezing into ice in a circle about her as the drops touched the cold ground.
From the far distance a gryphon’s call echoed, rebounding plaintively among the peaks before fading back to silence. Aquila cocked his head at the sound, expression unreadable, and Celestia finally faced him again. “No. I have made mistakes, just like any other, but I would not unwish Twilight nor my sister’s happiness with her.
“So where does that leave you?” He persisted.
She shook her head at him. “Usually you’re more subtle than this, but I suppose I deserve it. All there is left to do is go back. There aren’t any more excuses left to me.”
He grunted. “You usually don’t need me to tell you these things.”
“Usually, Luna and Twilight are not involved.” She pursed her lips. “They are the only ones who can really hurt me. Hurt me, not just Princess Celestia. Thousands of years old, and yet I can still act like a foal when it comes to those I love.”
“To err is equine,” Aquila murmured. “Be you ever so much a Princess.”
“Or a god,” she sighed, bracing her shoulders instinctively against what she knew awaited her. “All that remains is to return home. Thank you, Aquila.”
There was no answer. After all, he had been dead for over a thousand years.
“I dunno,” Rainbow Dash said doubtfully. “It’s kind of weird, Twi.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Rarity scolded. “That’s a wonderful look, Twilight. I always thought you’d be able to pull off the whole ‘ethereal mane’ thing,” she said in shameless flattery. “Of course, now you never have to style it. I’m so jealous!”
“So you don’t mind?” Twilight said anxiously. “It’s not...too weird?” She looked at Rainbow Dash.
“Nah,” she said after a moment. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Hah!” Pinkie tittered. “Big deal! Big!”
Applejack snorted. “We stuck with ya so far sugarcube. A few extra inches and fancy mane doesn’t change any of that.”
“Good,” Twilight said, relieved. It wasn’t only their acceptance that was encouraging, it was the fact that she was able to hold that form without sending them into paroxysms of fear. Spike had been remarkably immune to surprise, simply muttering something about more seating space and parking himself in his usual spot on her back. His quill scratched away quietly as he finished the formal papers for her role as Equerry, a blessed bit of normalcy in a life that had become rapidly alien.
Being taller than her big brother was just strange.
She had convinced Shining Armor and Cadence to stay another day or two, at least until the present crisis had died down. They had years more experience ruling together than Twilight and Luna’s own knowledge was outdated, and with Celestia gone they were the closest experts around. Besides, she didn’t get much opportunity to see Shiny or Cadence anymore.
“My mistakes didn’t mess up anything you were doing did it?” It was far more likely that it helped, as it had with Twilight’s confrontation with the nobles. She felt guilty for hoping that it had, for some ponies might not have agreed on their own. But she couldn’t undo those thirty minutes, merely try to be as fair as possible going forward.
“Oh, we barely noticed,” Fluttershy lied. Twilight winced, but the pegasus continued gamely on. “And you fixed it anyway. So, I mean, everything is all right now. Right?”
“Not quite,” Twilight said, giving Fluttershy a grateful smile for her understanding. “I still have to make apologies and explanations to everyone else.”
“And done.” Spike declared with one last flourish of a quill. “All right, Skyshine, all ready!”
The pegasus broke off a nigh-incomprehensible conversation with Cadence over heraldry with a quick bow, trotting over to seize the papers with greedy glee. “Good! That should stop most of Dotty’s grumbling. I hope.” She paused for a moment. “I really hope. Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, do you mind…?”
Cadence waved a friendly hoof. “Go ahead, we can finish later. Shining Armor should be around to contribute anyway.”
“Of course, Princess.” Skyshine bowed again and vanished with a flick of her wings.
Time was slipping past faster than it really should be, to the extent that Twilight was almost tempted to pause Equestria again just to catch her breath. Almost. In fact, the beginning of the evening court was nearly upon them, which was why they were all in the exceedingly fine antechamber rather than somewhere more comfortable while they worked through last minute panic. At least, Twilight felt panicked. Nopony else seemed to be more than harried.
Luna appeared with her guards from the same door Skyshine had left through, settling her wings back against her sides. She favored Twilight with an acquisitive grin before picking her way over, exchanging cheerful greetings on the way. Despite her own nervousness, Twilight was glad to see Luna in better spirits. Reconnecting with her Lunar Guard seemed to have soothed her in a way even Twilight could not.
And that had inspired Twilight to assemble her own Guard - or rather, her friends, upon whom she already relied for so much. She hardly needed, and wouldn’t want, armed and armored defenders, but rather supporters, and Celestia had said that court was what they made of it. So this time the others were joining her out in the audience hall.
“Do you have everything planned for this evening?” Luna asked, a twinkle in her eye. She was taking a certain delight in Twilight finally claiming proper status, even if the first act was an apology.
“I have plans.” Twilight gave Luna a wry smile. “After today I’m not confident to say I have everything planned though.”
“All we can do is the best we can do,” she said, pulling Twilight in for a kiss while Spike hastily abandoned ship. “Are we ready to go?”
“Almost,” Twilight said, a bit breathlessly. She wasn’t quite used to Luna’s enthusiastic affections, and probably never would be. But that was fine with her. “Just waiting for Skyshine to come back. She wanted to get in the paperwork before we started.”
“Bureaucracy,” Luna said, with decidedly mixed emotions. “I supposed it can’t be helped, but Tia was always more comfortable with it.”
“All you need is someone who knows how the system works,” Spike put in. “Like me!”
“Well I’m glad I have you then, Spike.” Twilight smiled fondly at him. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Not much!” He grinned back.
Twilight rolled her eyes and Skyshine flitted back into the room. She made a beeline for Twilight, setting down and holding out an ancient gold chain with an intricate seal. “Equerry’s seal of office. Be careful, this one’s from the museum.”
“I’ll take good care of it,” she promised, settling the aged chains about her neck. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere tonight.”
Skyshine glanced worriedly at the clock. “Are we all ready? Good. At your command, Princess Luna.”
“By all means, let us not delay,” Luna replied, summoning her guards to her side with a gesture. Twilight looked to her own friends, and was pleased to find them more or less assembled behind her. She exchanged semi-nervous smiles with them as the fanfare started, then turned to follow Luna into the throne room.
This time it was packed full, thanks to the efforts of Twilight’s friends. It wasn’t simply nobles on the polished marble, but workers, artists, guards, shopkeeps, and even a visiting dignitary or two. It wasn’t that they had been excluded from Celestia’s court, it was that it simply wasn’t relevant for them. Luna intended to make it so. The fact that it gave Twilight the broadest possible audience for her explanation was merely a fortunate side effect. Or an unfortunate one; she hadn’t decided yet.
There was a decided reaction as Twilight appeared in her proper aspect, murmurs and gasps, a few shouts of astonishment or alarm, and somewhere in the crowd a pony laughed hysterically. Spike strode out in front of the throne as they all took their places; Luna’s guards on her side of the throne, standing at attention, while on Twilight’s side cushions had been provided for her friends. The overall effect was one of severe dichotomy, the ruler contrasted with the friends. Shining Armor and Cadence had their own box off to one side; available but not of the process.
Once the fanfare was over, Luna nodded to Spike and he stepped forward to address the waiting crowd. “Before Royal Court begins,” he boomed in a fair imitation of the Royal Canterlot Voice, “Equerry Twilight Sparkle will address you.”
There was another murmur. Luna’s expression stayed neutral, though Twilight could feel the smile hidden behind it. Twilight was a bit less amused at their confusion, but she had to admit properly disseminating news of her rank, especially when they didn’t know what it meant yet, would have been nigh impossible.
She stepped forward from the throne onto the middle of the dais, looking out at the hundreds - or maybe thousands - of eyes locked on her. “Hello,” she said. “Some of you may have noticed something odd happen earlier today. I don’t know what it would have been like for you, but perhaps twenty minutes or so when things were not quite right.”
Nods and murmurs of assent spread through the crowd, even the non-ponies. Twilight had no idea what it had been like for any of the visitors, whether they’d been caught by the magic or excluded because they weren’t Equestrians. It was a good thing it hadn’t lasted long. “That was my fault,” she told them.
“When I came before you a few days ago and said I had become a god, it was strictly true, but I was not worthy of the term. I thought of it as being no more than a powerful unicorn, and I was wrong.” She looked over her audience, which had gone still and silent. “Because I didn’t take it seriously I very nearly hurt a lot of ponies. The fact that I corrected my mistake doesn’t excuse making it. So, I must apologize. I am sorry.”
“I know now that I must truly embrace who and what I am. I am not a god of the heavens, like Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. What brought me here was my friends.” She gestured behind her at the others. “And loved ones.” She looked over to Luna with a smile. “I started as an ordinary pony, and that is where my roots are. In fact, I still am an ordinary pony! You can be many things at once, so I am both a pony that enjoys hanging out with my friends, and a god to serve, guide, and guard Equestria.”
“And this I pledge to do. And that I will no longer take it for granted, because I have to recognize both halves of myself. I can no longer think of myself as simply a unicorn,” she said, tasting the truth of her words as she spoke them. “For I must be a god for all ponies and to all ponies. In order to do right by all of you, I vow to embrace everything.”
They were not just words. It was an oath with the full intent of a god behind it, and it resonated, through her and through the ties that bound her into Equestria.
And Equestria responded.
It shuddered and shifted, and with the sensation of many small things slotting into place, or of ideas finally understood, Equestria rose up about her. It surrounded her, embraced her, and in that moment she saw that all she had experienced of it before was superficial, a thin veneer over vast and ancient depths. It was alive, aware, and focused on her.
There was nothing that could be called conversation. It was not like a pony or even a god, but there was an exchange nonetheless. She understood she needed to serve all kinds of ponies; all kinds of ponies would she need to be to understand them. At the intersection between her soul and Equestria’s, something changed.
It began deep down, in the heart of the world where she’d walked with Luna, died, and lived. It rose through the layers of existence, at the same time small and immensely profound, replacing with three where there was once one. It did not so much alter her self as expand it, another profound shift in perception. Breadth to match the depth she’d already found.
She was peripherally aware of shouts of startlement and alarm, and a bright light surrounding her, but it was nothing compared to the transcendental metamorphosis within her.
***
Of all the possibilities, Luna hadn’t considered this one. She knew that she, herself, wasn’t the best model for godhood but she had done her utmost to share what she knew with Twilight. And Twilight had learned better than she could have imagined.
As Equestria rose up to exalt Twilight, she knew exactly what was happening. She and Celestia had started out as alicorns, and Cadence had ascended during the interregnum, so she had never observed or experienced the process before, but there was no mistaking that trinity of elements.
Her last words had just started to fade when it began, a glow coming from deep within Twilight’s body. Deeper than most could imagine. Her horn didn’t light, for it wasn’t really magic. It was something more primal. The first rank of ponies stepped back instinctively, crowding those behind them, as Twilight’s hooves left the floor, ascending effortlessly, her expression stuck somewhere between surprise and awe.
Her friends started toward her, and Luna stepped between them, holding out her hoof. “Just watch.” They all gave her doubtful looks, especially Fluttershy, and she gave them a smile in return. “This was meant to be,” she said, turning to take her own advice. From the corner of her eye she saw Cadence holding back Shining Armor in a similar manner, her smile knowing and her eyes worried.
Threads of power wrapped around Twilight, the bright glow within her swelling and blazing into coruscating brilliance. For a single moment it seemed as if she had been torn asunder, then she burst forth into an even brighter glory, saturating the entire audience hall and indeed all of Canterlot in a magical radiance.
It thundered noiselessly through them, replacing breath and sight and thought with a crystallized moment of awe as Twilight’s incarnate form slammed back into reality. Euphoric light clung to her, outlining horn, fur...and feather.
“Behold,” Luna said. “A new Equestria dawns. Behold.”
Twilight lifted her head.
“She is become harmony triumphant.”
Twilight opened her eyes. “Three tribes in one.” Twilight spread her wings.
“The alicorn.”
And Twilight blinked, turning her head to look at her feathers with a kind of dreamy puzzlement. “Huh.”
Then there was noise. Uproar and bedlam spread through the audience as Luna stepped over to Twilight, her friends crowding around. “Are you all right?” She asked, her voice quiet despite the fact that even a shout would go unheard.
“Yeah, I’m...I’m fine.” She shook her head dazedly. “I, um. Wow.”
“That was amazing!” Fluttershy put in, barely above a whisper. “I didn’t know anypony could do that.”
“You are so changey. That’s three times so far!” Pinkie added.
“Does it count if one of those times was only for a day?” Rarity asked.
“Twilight,” Luna interrupted them. “How do you feel? Do you want to continue court, or should we withdraw for now?”
“Oh. Oh!” Twilight looked out at the chaotic crowd. “No! I feel great! No need to stop.”
“Good.” Luna gave her a smile and a quick kiss before turning to face the audience hall.
“Ladies and gentlecolts!” She boomed, the force of her voice silencing the clamor instantly. “Is this seemly?”
The rebuke settled them, most of them finding their places again with the discreet assistance of the guards scattered throughout. A few slipped out entirely; overwhelmed, frightened, or simply wanting to spread the news. Luna waited until they were settled to address them, in a far less overwhelming tone. “I understand that what you have seen here was dramatic, and there are many things about it that will need to be addressed. But there is also a court to conduct, and we shall do just that.”
She retook her seat on the throne, joined a moment later by a still giddy Twilight, and nodded at Spike. “Begin.”
“Hear ye, hear ye!” His bellow wasn’t quite up to the same standards as Luna’s, but it was good enough to echo from the far doors. “The Court is now in session! The first petitioners may approach the throne.” He glanced at the rolled scroll for reference. “The Throne recognizes...uh…” Spike faltered as a unicorn mare pushed ahead of the others, planting herself defiantly in front of the two alicorns.
“Me.”
Spike blinked and looked at his scroll again. “Er, who are you?”
Her muzzle twisted into an unpleasant smile. “I’m glad you asked.”
Lurid green light surrounded her, her fur and cutie mark evaporating away to reveal smooth, sleek chitin, her horn twisting into a black spike, and her eyes turning an angry jade. “I am Chrysalis, the Changeling Queen.” The smile grew bitter and self-mocking as ponies surged away from her in a frozen wave of shock, the light in her eyes dimming. “And I am here to surrender.”
This time the outcry came from those on the dais, loud protestations coming from Twilight’s friends. Rainbow Dash, already a-wing, soared even higher, instinctively seeking high ground.
“What?” Twilight demanded, her voice sharp and angry. “Why? Why is she here? How is she here? Why did she come back? She -” Her mouth worked soundlessly, inarticulate with rage.
But it was Shining Armor whose voice rose the loudest. “Guards! Restrain her!” His voice was the stentorian bellow of a Captain of the Guard and, being used to taking orders from him, the guards leapt to obey. He didn’t wait for them, though, his horn flaring and an indigo bubble winking into existence around Chrysalis. He might have gone further, or perhaps Twilight would have, and Luna knew they would regret if they did, no matter that Chrysalis was an avowed enemy.
“Stop.” Her voice cut through the noise, shredding all the other sounds and neatly bisecting Shining Armor’s shield while the guards hovered uncertainly, caught between commands. The same word also pinned Chrysalis in place, and her eyes flashed. But she didn’t resist, and Luna regarded her speculatively.
She’d missed the failed coup attempt thanks to Celestia, but she’d heard enough about it since. Even gorged on the power of Shining’s love, she’d only revealed her hoof when forced. Her plan hadn’t been particularly solid but it had relied on her native changeling abilities. What Chrysalis was doing here made no sense at all when compared to that.
“Will you tell me why you’re here?” She asked Chrysalis.
“I just told you,” she spat. “To surrender. So declare victory. Start the parade. Bring out the chains. You win.”
“If you really mean that,” Luna said coldly. “You will answer what you know I’m asking. What do you want?”
The sneer fell away, leaving only naked desperation. “I want you to save my children.”
That rocked Luna back, even more of a shock than Twilight’s transformation had been. That had seemed right and proper, but this bore more than a hint of madness. She trusted neither Chrysalis nor her words and under other circumstances she would far rather have left it to Celestia. But Celestia wasn’t here, and she had made a commitment to rule, and rule properly.
“The Court will take a recess,” she said. “We will resume in one hour.”
She opened her mouth to instruct the guards, but thought better of it. “Twilight,” she said instead. “Could you bring her to the Star Chamber?”
“But Luna!” Twilight protested. “That’s Chrysalis. She -”
“I know,” Luna interrupted. “Which is why you’re the only one I trust can keep her under control. Please.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Twilight said grudgingly, and both she and Chrysalis vanished in a flash of purple.
Luna hoped so too. This was a different flavor entirely than dealing with her own ponies and she very badly needed help from the others. If she could convince them in the first place.
She turned to Spike and Twilight’s friends. “Will you girls stay here and keep order while we’re busy? You went to so much trouble to organize this and I’m deeply grateful, but events seem to be interfering. I don’t want all that work to be wasted. Spike and Skyshine will assist you, since between them they do most of the work anyway.”
Finally she looked to Shining Armor and Cadence. Shining was boiling with anger while Cadence was merely wan and worried, and Luna hoped that despite their reactions they’d be able, and willing, to help. “Shining Armor, Princess Cadence, could you please come with me?” She beckoned to them, heading for the door.
As soon as they passed into the hallway, Shining exploded. “You’re not going to listen to her are you? She’s a monster! She -”
“Shiny!” Cadence cut him off and his glare, turned on her, softened.
“You don’t think I’m wrong, do you?”
“I just don’t want you to be the monster, Shiny. We’re better than that. We owe it to ourselves to treat her with dignity.”
Shining Armor took a long breath and let it out. “You’re right. But still - how did she get in here? The entrance spells should have stripped off her disguise the moment she set foot in Canterlot!”
“You could ask her,” Luna suggested, relieved that Shining’s outrage had been defused. “But I want you two to advise me. You know her better than I do.”
“Not much better,” Cadence said. “I was imprisoned, Shiny was mind-controlled…”
“Don’t remind me,” Shining Armor muttered.
“Even so. I’d rather have you there.” Luna’s guards took up station around the trio as she led the short way to the Star Chamber, which was of course part of her tower. It was as close to a secure room as she had, so it would have to do for the interrogation.
When they arrived Twilight had already hobbled Chrysalis with chains of purple magic, and the two were glaring at each other from across the room. “Any trouble?” Luna asked quietly as they entered.
“No…” Twilight frowned, stepping away to join them on one of the seats that ringed the room. Combined with the sunken floor, it gave the accurate impression of lords sitting in judgement over the accused. “She hasn’t moved or even said anything. I don’t get it.”
Luna nodded and regarded Chrysalis, who lifted her head and returned the gaze. “When you were last here, you attacked us, entranced Shining Armor, and imprisoned Princess Cadenza. You have amply declared yourself our enemy, and I believe we are even technically at war. So why would you come to us, of all races, for help?”
“Because I had no choice,” she hissed. “Do you know how many changelings there are? You could fit all of us in a room half the size of your audience chamber. And there weren’t many more before I attacked Canterlot,” she said darkly. “And now your accursed spells disperse our magic before we can even enter a pony town. We are a hairsbreadth from extinction. The gryphons would ignore us. The dragons would laugh. The buffalo would just as soon stamp us out, and the less said about the diamond dogs, the better. Who else would we go to?”
“Wait,” Shining Armor put in. “You just said our spells got rid of your disguises. How did you get past that?”
“Because even diminished as I am, I am the queen of deception,” she said haughtily.
“But you’re asking us to believe you’re telling the truth,” Twilight said.
“I am aware,” Chrysalis growled. “Of the irony.”
“I’m not sure what I want to know first, why you think we would help you or how you think we could help you,” Luna murmured. “In fact this does not seem to be much your own idea. Did my sister peddle you this scheme?”
Chrysalis blanched, her ears flattening. “She visited,” she admitted after a moment. “We talked. But she didn’t suggest this.”
“She wouldn’t have.” Luna sighed. Even when she was gone, Celestia couldn’t resist meddling. She was tempted to reject - and eject - Chrysalis out of hoof, and from the set of Twilight’s jaw she agreed. But it wouldn’t have been fair either to Chrysalis or to herself to be so petty, and Twilight needed a better model for rulership than arbitrary emotional outbursts.
“Well, then. I am not saying I believe you, that I accept anything you’ve said. But tell me your offer.”
“Offer?” Chrysalis snorted, tossing her head. “I don’t have anything to bargain with, else I wouldn’t have started with surrender. Or had you forgotten? All I have is a plea.”
“And if we reject that, what will you do?”
“We will die,” Chrysalis said flatly, then her voice gentled as she looked down at her hooves. “My children will go to their rest peacefully, without fear or anger or despair.” Her head snapped up to glare at them again. “And I will go hoping that I have cost you at least one night’s sleep. That would be more than anything else I’ve accomplished.”
The sheer depths of bitter despair in that voice took Luna’s breath away. If Chrysalis was acting, it was the best performance Luna had had witnessed in thousands of years. She exchanged an uncertain look with Twilight, but it was Cadence who spoke.
“I believe her.”
“What?” Shining Armor stared. “Are you all right, Cadence? Did she get to you? I swear - “
“I’m fine, Shiny.” Cadence smiled at him and put a hoof on his shoulder. “Look at her. She’s a few choice words away from breaking down entirely. I’m not saying I like her! I just don’t think she’s our enemy anymore.”
Shining Armor turned to examine Chrysalis again, and she met his stare squarely. But there was a fragility in that gaze, and it was only the changeling’s stubborn pride that kept her from looking away from Shining’s hard blue eyes.
Twilight saw it too. She rubbed her face with a hoof and sighed. “All right, say she’s telling the truth. Now what?”
“Now we decide,” Luna said quietly. “Regardless of our personal feelings. As rulers, it is our duty to do the right and necessary thing, no matter how much we might wish we didn’t have to.”
“We decide?” Cadence was surprised. “This is your kingdom, Luna.”
“It is my responsibility,” Luna allowed. “But you’re my advisors here. And you will have to live with the consequences as much as I.”
Twilight’s mouth worked as she struggled through a thought. “We can’t,” she said finally.
Chrysalis’ entire body sagged.
“We can’t just sit here and do nothing. Even Discord got a second chance. Why shouldn’t she? And it’s not just for her, either. There’s the rest of the changelings, too.”
“I agree,” Cadence said. “If not for her sake, then for theirs.”
“I don’t want to help her,” Shining grumbled. “But I can’t condemn an entire species. Count me neutral.”
“Very well. You realize, Chrysalis, that if we help you it will come with strings attached.”
“I am no position to object,” she growled. “But I would polish your hooves and bring your meals for the next thousand years if you can save my children.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Luna shook her head at Chrysalis. “But you will have to give up your title of queen. You will be one of Our subjects, and swear fealty to Us. It is the only way we can begin to trust you.”
“Done.” Chrysalis said instantly. “I, Chrysalis Soulthief, do hereby pledge my body, soul, and immortal life to the aid and service of Princess Selene Dreamwalker, Princess Celeste Dawnbringer, Princess Twilight, and the Equestrian Throne.” She tilted her head back and looked at them challengingly. “Now let me out of these chains.”
“I’m not a princess!” Twilight protested.
Chrysalis bared her fangs in a humorless smile. “You will be.”
It was true enough. Alicorns, by definition, were most suited to rule and, also by definition, the ones ponies looked up to the most. There was an inevitability just short of law, but at the moment it was buried under other concerns. “Twilight,” she said quietly. “Let her go.”
The chains vanished, and Chrysalis drew herself up, looking at them expectantly. “Well?”
“Well.” Luna looked over at Twilight. “Twilight, you’re the smartest pony I know. I have no idea how to even start saving a species, but I know you will. Go with Chrysalis, get the rest of the changelings, and bring them back here. Check with Skyshine on where we should put them, and then...well, it’s in your hooves. Saving a species is a good first project for an alicorn, don’t you think?”
“I suppose so!” Twilight smiled at her, but the smile faded as she turned to look at Chrysalis, her brow furrowed in thought.
“Shining, I know you’re not Captain of the Guard anymore, but I’d appreciate it if you’d talk to them. They’re going to have an awful lot of prisoners and now Twilight is in their chain of command, and this is going to be delicate enough as it is.”
“Can do. It’ll be good to catch up with the guys.”
“You’ve been ‘catching up’ all week, dear,” Cadence murmured, amused. “And what do you have for me, Luna?”
“Come back to court with me?” Luna smiled at her. “Even with all this I can’t neglect that, and Twilight is going to be busy tonight.”
“Of course.” Cadence nodded. “Besides, it’s better than listening to Shiny swap those old creaky academy stories with the other guards.” She grinned and elbowed him in the ribs.
“Creaky?” He laughed. “Not as creaky as your story about the one time you were foalsitting Twi and -”
“Hush.” Cadence said primly, then leaned over and kissed him. “I’ll see you later, dear. Go make sure nopony does anything rash.”
“Will you be all right, Twilight?”
“I’ll manage,” she said with a determined expression. “But I’ll need Spike back.”
“Of course.”
“Stay here,” she told Chrysalis and vanished in a flash of light.
The changeling looked dourly at the spot where she had been and then at Luna. “And if she works a miracle and finds some way to save us, what then?”
“Then...it is my turn. If it is Celestia’s duty to keep us all from falling apart, and Twilight’s to do the impossible, then surely it is mine to dream the dreams of our futures.”
She hadn’t really intended it, but the sun’s rhythms were her rhythms, even if she wasn’t the one raising it. The first morning rays struck the top of Canterlot as she passed through the gates, drawing startled looks from the guards stationed there. The seniormost one peeled off and hurried to her side. “Princess Celestia! You’re back!”
“I am indeed, Sergeant Snowbank. I hope my absence wasn’t too disruptive for you.”
“Er.” He paused for a moment, torn between agreeing with his liege and implying that he didn’t miss her.
She laughed softly. “I’ll settle for the expression on your face when you saw me arrive. Have Luna and Twilight been keeping you busy?”
“It’s been a bit hectic around here,” Snowbank admitted, stretching his legs to keep up with her casual stride. “I mean, the first night or two were about the same, but then things got a bit strange.”
“Strange?” Celestia took a deep breath of cool city air. She rarely saw the dawn in Canterlot from anywhere but her balcony, and it was a different experience to be in the streets. It was quieter than the palace, but here and there isolated pockets of noise revealed early risers; a door banging off in the distance, a sudden roar of laughter, a bubble of conversation cut short. A sleepy couple making their way home stopped and stared and then knelt as she walked by. She smiled at them, nodded, and then paused as the scent of fresh bread wafted across the road from some nearby bakery. The palace had its own bakeries, of course, but there was something different about running across it unexpectedly.
“Well, I’m not really clear on exactly what happened. Princess Twilight made a speech about something and lit up the whole audience hall.”
Celestia felt her brows climb of their own accord, but she didn’t interrupt him.
“Then she hauled in half the guard to get all the prisoners settled and the other half is off doing all these errands for Princess Luna…” He shook his head. “I’m just glad they left enough for the usual posts.”
“Princess? Prisoners? My, they have been busy.” Celestia wasn’t entirely surprised. Her sister had a habit of upending things, though admittedly not to the degree that the entire royal guard was needed to take care of it. That seemed more like Twilight’s touch. The title, though, wasn’t. The prisoners made only a little more sense, because at least for that she had some possibilities at hoof.
It was both strange and refreshing to be so disconnected from the apparatus of Equestria and the court that she could only make guesses. And yet she found herself only mildly curious. Even the most foreboding horrors of a court in chaos were nothing compared to the real worst case scenarios. She’d lost a loved one for a thousand years; she didn’t want to lose two for longer.
“Since you’re back now, Princess…” Snowbank didn’t finish the sentence, looking over at her in what he thought was a surreptitious manner.
“Will I be taking the throne again?” Celestia looked up at the towers of Canterlot Castle. “We’ll see. It’s entirely possible Twilight and Luna won’t need my help at all.”
“Even if they don’t...well, y’know, we like having you around.”
Celestia stopped and smiled at him. “Thank you, Snowbank. It’s always nice to hear that.”
Snowbank beamed. Celestia resumed her amble toward the castle where, no doubt, word was being passed to Captain Lightbeam even now about her arrival. She looked forward to the exquisitely polite scolding she’d get from him for misleading him about the nature of her trip, a small pocket of normalcy in an uncertain world.
But that would have to wait. She intended to see Luna and Twilight first, no matter how easy it would be to get distracted by other things. She could have simply stepped through light and reached the palace directly, but a deliberate approach, through the front door, felt more appropriate. At that moment, it was more their home than hers.
A few specks in the air resolved themselves into members of the Celestial Guard in gleaming gold and white, dropping down to land on either side of her. They peered around as if searching for enemies in the middle of the nearly deserted early-morning streets, giving Snowbank a professional salute only after their survey was complete. “Welcome back, ma’am,” the senior guard said to her.
“Thank you, Brightwing.” He came to even stricter attention, if that were possible, as she regarded him. “I hope you don’t expect I have so many enemies that they lurk in the very streets of Canterlot.”
“No, ma’am!” There was a glimmer of humor in Brightwing’s eye despite his brusque reply. They were used to her gentle ribbing where their protectiveness was concerned, but she also made sure they knew she was genuinely appreciative of their efforts. Most of the threats any pony faced in life weren’t physical, after all.
“Well, it’s a fine morning if you wish to join me. I’m only going to the palace, but it’s to face the most dangerous enemy of all.”
“...Discord?”
“Work.” In fact, she would rather have faced a pre-friendship Discord than what she had to, and it was hardly something her guards could protect her from.
“Of course, ma’am,” Brightwing said dutifully. With the armored pegasi on either side her presence was more familiar, and while everypony she passed still knelt, fewer outright gawked.
The first thing she noticed when she reached the palace gates was the wings.
Luna and Twilight were waiting for her, as she’d half-expected, and Luna had finally let her guards accompany her again. Twilight didn’t have her own guards - not yet - but she was matching Luna’s height, her ethereal mane, and her wings.
Celestia stared. She had given up that hope when Twilight had returned with the mantle of divinity. After all, gods didn’t change.
She set that aside, studying them more closely. They both seemed a little worn, a little haggard. Not unhappy, but overworked, and Luna had lost that dangerous fragility she’d carried for so long, while Twilight seemed to have gained some additional worries to go with her wings.
There was a moment where they all simply looked at each other as Celestia stopped in front of them, and then they all three spoke the same words at the same time. “We need to talk.”
***
As settings went for world-shaking conversations, Pony Joe’s donut shop was better than most Celestia had seen. Any number of rooms in the palace might have sufficed for the purpose, but Twilight had insisted and Celestia saw no real reason to object. Most conference rooms were distant and impersonal affairs, not stocked with spiced cocoa and frosted donuts. Joe, no stranger to high-profile customers, pretended not to notice three alicorns at a corner table and their guards screening them in the surrounding booths.
They traded bites of story between bites of pastry. It was not as cheerful as Celestia might have wished, but there wasn’t the angry animosity she had feared, either. If anything there was a wary tension, an uncertainty of how she would take, for example, Twilight’s accidental halting of Equestria’s clock. Or of Luna’s efforts in the court. Or, most of all, their acquisition of Chrysalis and her changelings.
As if they were afraid she would be mad at them.
Once the words had trailed into unsettled silence and the mugs had been refilled for a third time, Celestia floated a tentative conversational balloon.
“You should know,” she said. “That I am nothing but proud of both of you.”
Twilight made a half of a noise and shifted uncomfortably, but Celestia shook her head.
“Everypony makes mistakes, but you two have addressed them. Admirably so. But I have not addressed mine.
“I should start,” she said. “By apologizing. I should not have run off like that after dropping such a burden on the two of you. It isn’t a weight I can lift or undo or ever make right, but it is my responsibility. The least I can do is be here to address it.”
“So why did you leave?” Twilight blurted.
“Shh,” Luna said, a smile lurking at the corners of her mouth. “It’s not often you get to hear Celestia apologize.”
“And in this case it’s very deserved. But I can answer your question.” She looked from one to the other. “Luna, I lost you over a thousand years ago. There’s no blame, no accusations, but our relationship changed, and I don’t know if it can ever be recovered. Or should be. But I still love you, Luna, more than the rest of this whole world, and you had returned to me. I didn’t want to face losing you again.”
“And you, Twilight. I love all my ponies but you are more dear to me than you can imagine. I was not ready to face the risk that I might lose you too. I have faced the consequences of all of my actions, but when it became personal I...flinched.”
“We might have been angry, but we wouldn't have been angry forever,” Twilight protested.
Celestia took a sip of her cocoa before responding. “Perhaps. But Twilight, gods do not change. Or did not. To hold a grudge for a thousand years, or a hundred thousand, was no great strain. Second chances are rare and precious things.”
Twilight and Luna shared a look. “The question of second chances came up with Chrysalis, too,” Twilight said. “And in some ways I feel like I’m back in the Star Chamber again.” She rubbed at her forehead with a hoof. “I’ll never be happy that you manipulated me my entire life. But now, after these past few days...I think I understand. Being responsible as a pony, ruler, and god all at once is incredibly hard, and you can’t just do what you want.”
“And I’d forgotten,” said Luna. “How many different directions you get pulled in when you’re trying to do right by so many ponies.”
“I’d probably have forgiven you anyway,” Twilight continued. “Because I love you, too! But I feel I understand why you did it far more now. And that you didn’t do it for any other reason but that you had to. So I forgive you, Princess - I mean, Celestia.” Twilight smiled. “And I’m glad you’re back.”
“As am I, sister mine.” Luna leaned forward earnestly. “I understand only too well how flighty I have been in the past, and how far you must have been driven in order to lay such long plans for me. And I cannot begrudge what it has given me.” She smiled at Twilight before turning back to Celestia. “Even if I dislike the methods. So welcome back, and let there be no more veils between us.”
Celestia let out a long, slow breath. That had been far less painful than she had expected, but then she had known something had changed when she had seen the expressions greeting her.
“Thank you,” she said, feeling a great deal lighter than just a few seconds previously. “You have no idea how grateful I am to hear you say that. I was afraid my revelation might have come too late.”
“What revelation?” Twilight pounced immediately, heedless of the emotional climate, but that was simply as it should be.
“That I’d neglected simply being a pony for far too long.” Celestia pursed her lips. “That in truth I was afraid of what came with it. The relationships, the obligations, and the vulnerabilities.”
“That doesn’t sound like you,” Luna observed. “Not the first part, but admitting it so flatly.”
“Perhaps not.” Celestia gave Luna a faint smile. “But none of us are so perfect that we cannot improve. I am glad for the chance.”
“If we are making such confessions,” Luna said. “Then I must admit it was fear that held me back as well. Fear of...many things.” She dismissed the thought with a vague gesture. “But Twilight helped me face truly ruling again. And ruling more completely than I did millennia ago. I hadn’t realized how incomplete I’d been.”
“Incomplete,” Twilight said. “That’s it exactly.” She fluttered her wings briefly. “That’s why I didn’t have these before. My understanding, my commitment, was incomplete. I was avoiding stepping into the whole god thing because...well, it was unknown. There weren’t books on it, and it wasn’t anything you could really study. But once I made the decision…” Her muzzle wrinkled as she searched for a proper way to conclude her thought. “Everything changed. But you said gods don’t change.”
“They didn’t,” Celestia said seriously. “But that may no longer be true.”
“What happened?”
“You did, Twilight.” Celestia nibbled a doughnut thoughtfully. “At least, I think it is you. We are truths of how the world works, Luna and I, and we in many ways define our peoples. But you’ve stepped outside that. I think you might define truths about how we work.”
“So I can just decide something and it will be true?” Twilight asked incredulously. “That doesn’t sound right.”
“I would think,” Luna murmured. “That it’s who you are that changes things. You saved me. You’re saving Chrysalis. You let Celestia go on her journey. How many other things have you done that have changed the world?”
“That’s different! Doing what’s right and being someone’s friend isn’t world-changing magic...oh.” Twilight stopped herself. “It is, isn’t it? It’s the most fundamental magic of all.”
“You would know,” Celestia smiled. “It’s your area of expertise, after all.”
“If I have...or at least, can, change gods...then the whole world is about to transform, isn’t it?” Twilight said, daunted. “And it will be because of me.”
“I have said,” Luna smiled. “That it was your duty to do the impossible.”
“But you won’t be alone,” Celestia assured her. “You will have Luna, of course. And me, if you wish.”
“Of course I wish!” Twilight sounded surprised she would even ask. “I want you back.”
“We want you back,” Luna said. “You need to be part of Equestria again.”
“Equestria was only ever meant for two,” Celestia said doubtfully.
Twilight shook her head. “If it worked when there was only you, it’ll work with all three of us. I’m sure of it.”
“And whether Twilight and I are good or bad at ruling, I think it would be incomplete without you as well. Two is no longer enough.”
“Then I suppose we will have to see what happens.”
Celestia unfurled her godhead, reaching out for the living tapestry that was Equestria. It welcomed her like an old friend, flowing around and through her, the familiar weight settling into her being. The flare was only visible to gods’ eyes, but it flashed out from the small table, bright and penetrating sunlight suffusing every fiber of Equestria’s soul.
The balance was not the singular monopole of the thousand year interregnum, nor the circling duality of the original Diarchy. It was different. It was a triad. It was something that reverberated to the furthest ends of Equestria and back, humming between the three of them and rippling out to every living thing.
