What was Celestia's plan for Nightmare Moon?
“Princess Celestia?”
“Yes, Twilight?”
“I have a question.”
“Then ask it, dear Twilight.”
“Last week, when we used the Elements of Harmony on Nightmare Moon and restored your sister... had you planned all of that out?”
Celestia raised an eyebrow. “Why do you ask, my faithful student?”
“Well.” Twilight sat down on the library floor, and waved one forehoof slightly. “I can't seem to come up with a reasonable answer. Clearly, you either did plan it or you didn't. Those are the only two possibilities. And yet... if you didn't have a plan, that seems shockingly irresponsible, considering that you must have known that Nightmare Moon was coming back. On the other hand, if you did have a plan... then why didn't you tell me, when I asked?”
“Oh, Twilight.” Celestia sat down next to her student, wrapping one wing around her. “Of course I had a plan. It was a magnificent plan. But what happened... what happened was better than any plan I could have made in advance. Because one thing I didn't plan for, Twilight... was the possibility that you might save me so quickly.”
Twilight frowned. “Then... what was your plan, Princess? Who else were you going to send to the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters?”
“Nopony.” said Celestia, firmly. “Those stone orbs that you and Nightmare Moon found there were worthless – nothing more than dead shells. The Elements of Harmony – the original Elements, that I used to banish Luna and entrap Discord – had lost their potency some time before that.” Celestia sighed. “It all started when I took the Elements and banished Nightmare Moon the first time. Luna had been bound to three of the Elements – Laughter, Loyalty and Honesty – and in banishing her, I severed that bond entirely. It was the right thing to do; but the Elements would have nothing to do with me after that. They began to fade, slowly, growing greyer and greyer, losing their facets, becoming more spherical. I did what I could, of course; I made a purposeful effort to embody Luna's elements as well as my own, but it did not seem to help. I sought out groups of ponies who embodied the individual elements, and tried to teach them to become Bearers; but the Elements, for all their slow fading, did not leave me for any of those ponies. Then I created a series of academies, each geared towards one of the separate Elements, and left each Element in its corresponding Academy for over two centuries; to no effect.” Celestia gave Twilight a sidelong glance. “I don't suppose you've been back to the Academy for Gifted Unicorns lately, have you?” she asked.
“Well, not in the last week...” said Twilight.
“Do you remember the statue in the quad?” she asked. “A pony balancing a ball on its snout?”
“Yes,” said Twilight, “why do you – oh!”
“Indeed.” nodded Celestia. “That ball was the last physical remnant of the Element of Magic. It's gone now, of course, ever since you summoned it to the Castle during your confrontation with Nightmare Moon. So no, I wasn't going to send anypony else to the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. It simply wasn't necessary.”
“Then... what was your plan?” asked Twilight.
“I had several.” said Celestia. “Do you remember, back in Canterlot, how I used to keep introducing you to ponies? Fancy Pants, Soarin...”
“Yes.” grimaced Twilight. “I remember. You would take me out of a nice comfortable library into this hall teeming with nobility and introduce me and Shiny to...”
The realisation hit Twilight like a sack of bricks. “You... wanted me to make friends with them.” she said.
“Yes,” said Celestia, “I did. You were one of the best candidates for the Bearer of Magic that I knew. But one element, alone, would do nothing. You needed to be one of a group of six friends, each personifying one of the Elements. Shining would have probably been Loyalty, Cadence Kindness; and there I had half a team already. I'd hoped that making a full team would just be a matter of introducing you to the right ponies. That was one of my plans...”
“And I messed it up.” said Twilight. “I messed it up by being unwilling to make friends.”
“Twilight,” said Celestia, giving her student a squeeze with her wing, “it doesn't matter. What happened was far, far better than anything I had planned. I did have a complete Canterlot team in the end; and it's not as if it was the only team I was putting together.” She nuzzled Twilight, reassuringly. “I had a total of seventeen fully briefed teams, spread out amongst as many major cities, under strict orders to embody their respective Elements as well as they could, to always stand together, and to resist Nightmare Moon in all circumstances. Teams in Manehatten, Stalliongrad, Baltimare, Cloudsdale...”
“What happened to them?” asked Twilight.
“You happened.” said Celestia, proudly. “I didn't expect any of my teams to succeed in less than a week, never mind in a matter of hours.When I stepped out of my imprisonment in the Sun so quickly, and I saw you there, with my sister not merely re-banished but actually restored, freed of the Nightmare taint... I've never been prouder of you than in that moment, Twilight.”
“Then... why did you send me to Ponyville?” asked Twilight. “And why did you instruct me to make some friends?”
“I sent you to Ponyville to keep you safe.” said Celestia, firmly. “I expected that Nightmare Moon would concentrate on the larger cities first – which is why that is where I put my teams. Canterlot is visible from Ponyville, and I expected that even if Nightmare Moon were to turn up there, she would leave it for the larger target visible on the horizon; where my best team, led by your brother, was waiting for her.”
“And I asked you to make friends,” continued Celestia, “for two reasons. The first was that you were still the best candidate for the Element of Magic that I had ever seen. I expected that one of my prepared teams would deal with Nightmare Moon long before you could form the bonds of friendship necessary to activate the Elements; but, in the unlikely case of all seventeen teams failing completely, my only hope was that another group of friends, capable of restoring and taking up the Elements, would be formed. But the main reason, Twilight, the most important reason why I included that in the note... it was because I thought you would need friends. That you would need someone to talk to, to comfort and to be comforted by, when the night lasted a week, or a month, or even perhaps two months. When the temperature dropped, and even the best efforts of the Earth ponies barely prevented the crops from dying. When I couldn't be there for you.”