The heavy tome slid off the desk, held tight within an aura of shimmering golden magic. A red ribbon bookmark was tugged free from the pages and, with the same gravity that accompanied the unsealing of a tomb, the book was opened. Light whispered into the dingy basement from seemingly nowhere, illuminating its pages.
“I wish it to be noted, so that I may put myself past any allocation of blame when the whole matter inevitably devolves into flames and shrieking and the fracturing of all we know and love, that this is a mistake,” said Princess Luna, who watched the book and the alicorn holding it with wary eyes.
The title, originally picked out in tiny specks of black jet, was still barely legible. Collected Musings of Starswirl Pon The Venture Arcane. Below that, in a slightly less formal script, Keep out, ye Bloodie Snoop-thieves. Thise will slay ye horriblie an ye bollock arounde with it.
“So noted. But your fears seem unfounded.” Princess Celestia, Paramount of Equestria and the Dominions Thereof, Sol-Wielder and Dawn Bringer, absently flicked through page after page. “We’ve worked with this book before, you’ll recall? We do owe something of our current positions to it.”
“I am aware. I also distinctly recall picking it up from a pile of ashes that still contrived to scream the first time we laid hooves upon it.”
“Hence why I’m exercising as much caution as is due, and why I’ve requested your vigilant attendance,” replied Celestia. “If anypony’s to make sense of Starswirl’s Partitioning Dweomerlayk, then it should be me. I have one thousand and two hundred years of magical practice to draw upon. I can shrug off arcane backlash that would slay any normal pony. It’s only sensible that I sound out this spell before passing it onto the School’s research division.”
“Very selflessly argued.”
“Thank you -”
“And I’m sure the fact that thou hast resented the lack of capable supervision these last thousand years preventing thee from indulging in projects this dangerous in good conscience has nothing to do with thy keenness to try it out and damn the risks.”
Celestia paused in her reading long enough to briefly frown. “This poses no great danger. And I’m not so foalish as that.”
“Indeed. I’m sure the Parliament’s recess for today and the brief pause in the holding of court were happy coincidences and little more.”
“I have served Equestria as its sitting princess for more time than I care to recall,” Celestia said crisply. “If I did not take the odd chance to unburden my mind and attend to something more fun, I would go mad.”
Luna watched her sister pore over the tome of ancient and eldritch lore with eager attention. “An unimaginable and terrifying outcome, I’m sure. What will this spell do exactly? Dost thou even know?”
“He never goes much into the actual description, as you know. He only ever really described the arcane notation and sygaldry to be composed in mind. But this was one of the few he left written notes in the margin for. Past the spidery hoofwriting and his bizarre code, he discusses bringing higher rationality to the forefront, accenting it and dividing it off from the mean impulses which govern us at our core. That hardly seems to pose a great threat to my life and limb.”
“I mean not to cast too harsh a judgement, but most ponies in possession of a functioning brain would think twice, and then thrice, and then once more for good measure, before they attempted anything that threatened the integrity of their mind.”
“The effects of it are temporary before the original mind reasserts itself. The notes make that clear enough. The conscious will and intellect aren’t affected at all; nothing foreign is put in place. It only condenses and sharpens what is already there.” Celestia looked up from the book with a wry grin. “And if it does hone my higher functions, then that’ll hardly be to Equestria’s detriment. I could even make a regular habit of casting it.”
“Let’s not look that far ahead. Both thineself and civilisation in Equestria still have to survive the next few minutes.”
Celestia studied the book for a few more minutes in silence.
“Get Twilight Sparkle to attend to it. She’s of a scholarly nature and will relish the task. She might even compose thee a letter on the results,” Luna ventured once more, without much optimism.
“I deserve this, Luna,” Celestia said quietly. She looked up, a note of pleading in her magenta eyes. “Give me a moment of recklessness. Of discovery on my own terms. I’ve missed it.”
Luna regarded her silently, and then said, “The matter stands that thou art an idiot.”
“Is that agreement to supervise this?”
“Yes.” Luna took up a steadier stance, facing Celestia with her horn levelled and ready. “What should I attend for?”
“Starswirl describes a flash of light around the pony,” said Celestia, placing the book back upon the desk. “Beyond that, there’s little to say. I won’t be angry should you intervene based on your best judgement.”
“Believe me, that’s already been sharply curtailed when I consented to this,” muttered Luna. “Cast on, then.”
Celestia closed her eyes, letting golden light begin to coalesce around her horn. It was a slow build-up, the light growing in intensity ever so gradually until it blazed like a torch, chasing skittering shadows across the dusty stone floor.
Luna knew better than to interrupt. She waited in the shadows of the palace’s basement, poised to snuff out Celestia’s own magic with a blow to her horn if need be.
The light built and built, and when it made Luna’s eyes hurt to look at it, Celestia’s own eyes slammed open. They were spheres of pure fire.
“Oh,” she said with vague displeasure. “Well, that’s not what I’d -”
And then the world exploded.
Luna was unprepared for the light flashed forth from Celestia, a blazing torrent that blinded Luna and left her unprepared for the shockwave that followed on its heels. Only the almighty grounding and resilience of an alicorn kept her standing, and she shook her head sharply back and forth, trying desperately to clear the spots from her vision.
“Celestia?!” she yelled as she stepped forward, peering around in vain for something, anything, as panic mounted inside her. “Sister? Answer me!”
Why hadn’t she put up more of an argument against this silliness, why hadn’t she intervened partway through the ritual, why had she let Celestia convince her?, screamed a thousand different parts of her mind all at once. Losing her like this after a thousand years, Equestria losing her? Unthinkable. Not permitted. But the horror had unfolded before Luna’s eyes, because of her non-intervention –
The flash cleared, and an alicorn-shaped figure seemed to be rising to its hooves just before Luna. The panic blazed away like burning cobwebs, and the younger alicorn bounded forward. “Celestia! Are thou well? Did it - ?”
“By all in Tartarus, shut up,” growled the figure of Celestia in Celestia’s own voice. “My ears are ringing, and my brain feels like it was wrenched out of my skull and kicked around by a hoofball team. Shrieking at me doesn’t exactly help there, you pretty little nitwit.”
Luna paused mid-bound. “…What?”
The figure of Celestia strode from the fading effect of the flash. She was the same size as Celestia, still had the same coat colour, the same mane and eye colour. Celestia’s regalia lay forgotten on the floor at her back hooves. But the gait of this one seemed faster, more hurried. And when her magenta eyes glanced around to Luna, they radiated grumpy impatience.
“You shouldn’t gawp like that. Flies’ll fly in. Ponies’ll make unflattering remarks on your breath. The wind’ll shift and you’ll be stuck like that forever,” said Celestia. “I’m fine. Idiot, my sparkly flank. I feel more than fine for the first time in I-don’t-know-how-long.”
“But th’art -”
“Still young and beautiful, I know. I’m of a mind to find some cider and a handsome stallion disinclined to refuse his princess’s charming overtures, and stars save whatever fool courtier tries to get in my way.” Celestia smacked her lips and strode right past Luna, making for the stairs leading to the palace proper.
She stopped only to turn around and say, “And these are my shiny things,” before vanishing around the corner. The golden tiara, collar, and shoes of state were seized aloft in an angry golden glow and obediently bobbed out after her.
Luna looked towards them as Celestia picked them up, and then found herself preoccupied with staring right past them.
There on the floor behind where they had lain was another recumbent Celestia. She looked up at Luna with slightly fraught and tired eyes.
“What?” said Luna, barely-managing to resist the impulse to break out the Royal Canterlot Voice and shout her sudden swathe of problems into oblivion.
“Ah, Luna,” said the second Celestia. “Something of a problem may have just arisen.”
The letter that was sent to Twilight Sparkle two minutes later was written in a different hoof than the one she was used to, and though it used a route both she and Spike were used to, it came from a different sender.
Honoured Twilight Sparkle, Royal Student to Princess Celestia,
Gather together the other Elements of Harmony, and come to Canterlot immediately. The realm is in crisis.
Sir Stratus of her Solar Majesty’s Dayguard stood at attention outside the closed door leading down to the palace’s basement, a still statue of a pegasus stallion seemingly made from chipped iron. The muffled sounds that came from within the basement didn’t stir him. He had had his orders.
Anypony passing him by could have only imagined the ever-alert vigilance with which he held himself. This was largely because, in reality, he was playing chess in his head and covertly admiring any maids that wandered past.
A couple of years ago, he had entered the Dayguard as a wide-eyed and idealistic recruit, eager to do his duty to the princess. In the space of those years, the returning Princess Luna had smacked him in the face with lightning, an Element Bearer had blown raspberries in his face, he’d been turned into a small shrub by the Lord of Chaos, and had been systematically hoofed in the vulnerables by a succession of aggrieved-looking changelings less than a month ago.
Now he was still a wide-eyed and idealistic stallion in Celestia’s service, because there were some things you couldn’t change about a pony’s nature absent surgical equipment and a systematic series of sledgehammer blows to their skull, but he’d at least picked up on how to deal with the more boring parts of the job.
There was the clop of hoofsteps on the stairs leading up from the basement, and Stratus prepared himself for the routine. Wait for the door to open, fall in pace behind Princess Celestia when she would emerge, accompany her to her destination and remain with her if no other guards were present. Simple and boring enough, unless assassins he could heroically grapple with became involved. Which they never did.
The door opened, and Stratus stiffened himself, waiting for Celestia’s great form to appear at his right.
Instead, there came the sudden and stinging slap of a wing against his rear. Stratus spun in alarm, raising his steel-shod hooves in reflexive defensiveness.
He found himself looking up at the exceedingly close face of his princess, magenta eyes lazily looking him up and down as part of what could only be described as a leer.
A deer caught in headlights would have envied Stratus’s expression in that moment.
“Good haunch you’ve got there, my fine guardspony,” purred Celestia, leaning closer. “A mare could imagine all sorts of wicked things with you standing around.”
“…thank you, Your Majesty?” he meeped after a few terrifying moments which he spent fervently wishing that he’d made more of a study of the Dayguard’s protocol manual in the off chance this situation and a response for it had ever been described.
“What’s the matter?” said Celestia with a grin that was entirely too licentious for Stratus’s continued good mental health, leaning ever closer until he could feel her breath across the top of his snout. “You frightened of older mares?”
Stratus rummaged frantically in his mind for something that couldn’t be construed as either affirmation or possible treason, and stars above what was even happening, when all of a sudden, deliverance came.
“Celestia!” came the magically-enhanced and ear-splitting roar of Princess Luna from the basement’s doorway, hidden by Celestia’s body. “Attend me! We have to resolve this situation calmly!”
“Please, listen to … our sister,” came the quieter voice of Celestia. Except that Celestia’s lips hadn’t moved. “This is a delicate situation. It has the potential to unravel and cause all manner of -”
“Lulu and associated mimsy twerp, rest assured that I love you both like my own flesh and blood, which one of you really and truly is,” the Celestia before Stratus replied to Luna and her apparent ventriloquism-derived self. “But at the moment, you’re the proverbial piss in my porridge. Shove off.”
She briskly stepped forward. One wing extended and casually fell over Stratus, pulling him suddenly up and towards her side. He was pinned there, facing backwards, unable to do more than ineffectually wriggle as the princess broke into a carefree canter.
Before him, half-eclipsed by Celestia’s haunch, he could see Princess Luna, looking bewildered and angry enough to lash out. Beside her, there stood another Princess Celestia.
Stratus decided that whatever was happening, he wasn’t equipped to meaningfully deal with it, and decided to just start playing chess in his head again until it was all over.
“Tia, come back here! Put that guard down!” blazed Luna as she cantered after Celestia, while the other Celestia trailed uncertainly at her hooves.
“But he’s pretty, and I wish to keep him.” A certain amount of skip entered Celestia’s stride as she turned a corner that led down a long corridor leading to the throne room. “And I doubt what you’ve got to offer is anywhere near as fun as what the throne room has to offer You don’t have wine. It does.”
“We can discuss this in the wine cellar,” said the other Celestia soothingly. “We can enjoy a glass or two while we sort this out. Please consider the consequences if you -”
“I refer you to my earlier ‘Shove off’, you bleating non-entity. I know how I sort things out, and I’ll have none of it. I’m going to have some fun.” Celestia maintained a beeline for the oncoming door.
“Sister, that is where the delicate political business of the realm unfolds and I forbid thou from going near it in your current state!”
“Ooh. Very authoritative. Tell me when you find the pony that can stop me.”
There came a growl and a flash of darkly-glowing unlight, and Luna flashed into existence before Celestia, stance combat-ready and horn lowered. “Once more shall I ask before I resort to -!”
Golden light flashed, and Celestia vanished.
In the next instant, Celestia reappeared in the throne room. She spun back to face the door, and let loose a blast of magic that slammed into the handle and shimmered across the whole door’s surface, ran onto the walls and stained glass windows, and had swept across the whole vast room in less than an instant.
The handle rattled to no avail, with a stream of archaic blasphemy following from the other side of the door shortly after. A flash of dark blue magic shone past the edges and through the key hole, to be rewarded with a cut off fizzle as a section of wall briefly flashed gold. More thousand-year-old cursing followed.
Celestia turned on her heel to face the throne room. It was empty but for a handful of supplicants and two guards on either side of the distant throne.
“Your Majesty?” said one of the ponies waiting for her attention, a noble by his bearing and the cut of his garb. A unicorn mare in similarly fancy clothes hovered by his side. He glanced briefly at Stratus, still held under Celestia’s wing, before returning his attention to the princess herself. “What’s the occasion? Are we in any danger?”
“Ah, Lord Jet Set, a profound displeasure as always,” said Celestia, wheeling suddenly to face him, leaning forwards into his personal space. “Family still maintaining the time-honoured tradition of exalting inbreeding to an artform? Beg pardon, I’ve not been introduced to your lady. A cousin, I assume?”
“… Your Majesty?” hissed Jet Set, growing ever-so-slightly purpler.
“I’d ask why you were here, but I’ve concluded in advance that I don’t care about the answer enough to pose the question. Don’t let the palace doors hit you on the haunch on the way out. Or do. That would be funny.”
Celestia briskly trotted past the spluttering pair, cast her gaze around and found several glasses and a bottle of wine on a table at the hall’s edge. Light flashed again and the bottle appeared before her. She tilted it in mid-air, taking a long and leisurely swig before turning her attention back to the rest of the world.
“Good old Trottingham paint-stripper. You understand the pain,” Celestia murmured. “Come on then, roll up, roll up. Which chinless irrelevance wants to be the next to annoy their princess? Don’t be shy; we technically outlawed capital punishment two centuries ago. I could only banish you at worst.”
“Open this door and undo these wards, Celestia!” came a muffled and unheeded roar from the other side of the door. “Don’t interact with anypony important! Let me in!”
“You!” said Celestia, waving the half-empty bottle at a stunned-looking pegasus mare. “You look important, whoever you are. Regale me with something.”
“Um,” said the mare, looking from Celestia to Stratus to Celestia and then to the other supplicants, as if for moral support. Finding none, she did her best to rally. “Your Majesty, I represent the Trade Commune for Manehattan. Silver Tongue. We, ah, wanted to formally consult with you on the matter of improved regional flexibility for setting tariffs -”
“And as if by magic, I find myself not giving a flying feather. Go enthrall someone more deserving. Your mortal enemy, or a timberwolf, or a corvid berserker, or anything with more tolerance for this sort of thing than I currently possess.” Celestia made a shooing motion with her hoof. “Run along now. Who’s next?”
A series of resounding thuds hammered upon the door from its other side, as if somepony with the strength of an alicorn was trying to kick it down. Jet Set and Upper Crust were making feeble attempts at pulling down the handle on their own side, and sending occasional bewildered glowers back in the direction of Celestia.
“Your Majesty, are you well?” one particularly brave guard near the throne ventured. “You don’t seem … yourself.”
“I’m more myself than I’ve been in a good long while, Captain Eyewall. Why? Do I not seem the very picture of perfect vigour?” Celestia shifted one wing, shaking the trapped Stratus. “Your colleague here should attest to that once I’ve finished this bottle.”
Celestia lazily scanned the room, stopping when she alighted on one figure in particular. A goat in silk brocade stood at attention, maintaining nothing short of a heroic stoicism. Celestia’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, ambassador. I was hoping for a chat on the subject of Capra. And all that recent nastiness along the Asinial border.”
“As was I, in the name of the most revered Capricious Crown, your Majesty,” the Capric ambassador calmly replied, bowing briefly. “I was hoping for a private conference, with all due respect.”
“No need! I have a formal message for the Capricious Crown right now, if you’d care to draft it.”
The ambassador raised a brow ever-so-slightly, as he drew out a sheet of paper from a saddlebag and secured a pen in the cleft of a hoof. “As you wish, your Majesty.”
“To His Unfettered Highness, the Capricious Crown of Capra,” Celestia started. “Withdraw your armies from the Asinial Marches immediately. Stop bucking around with the peace of Asinia this instant or Equestria shall become involved. And by ‘become involved’, I mean that I will personally mobilise three – no, four Legions, march over your countryside and sow its fields with salt and your soldiers’ blood, tear your sacred mountains down into rubble, and take you as a trophy.”
“Princess?” said the ambassador quietly, still scratching away with the pen. Celestia grinned her most malevolent grin at him and spread her wings wide as the sun brightened past the stained glass of the windows. Stratus fell to the floor, freed, and wasted no time in galloping off. “Please, I beseech you for a private conference on this matter -”
“And once I’ve gotten bored of the latest crown in my collection, I’ll pop out each of your gems and give them to taxidermists to use as eyes. I’ll split your gilted half-arches into shards. And I’ll melt down your circlet and monde to be reforged into something to keep lonely mares happy. Or stallions too. Modern times and all. Stay away from Asinia. Love and kisses, Princess Celestia.”
The ambassador’s pen had paused over the paper. His mouth hung slightly open. “I … ah … your Majesty, am I to interpret this as -”
“Hush hush, just copy it down word-for-word like the good little drone you are. Leave the interpretation of all the subtle nuances and layered insinuations up to the Crown.” Celestia finished the bottle with one long swig. “What is the diplomatic parlance again? Go lose yourself? Return to where thou spawned? I’m sure I make my meaning clear.”
The ambassador primly retreated. Celestia threw the bottle at a nearby unadorned window with a thoroughly satisfying clatter of shattering glass, and looked around for another.
“More drink, more drink,” she muttered. “Where in Tartarus did I put that stallion as well? Ah well. I’ll find another.”
The numbers trying to exit the throne room via the closed door had swelled considerably, pulling at the handle and kicking the wooden surface to no avail. From the other side, there came another nigh-inarticulate yell from Luna and another series of bucks against the door. “Tia, thou let me in this instant!”
“No drink. Lost my stallion. And that’s an astonishingly ugly tapestry,” Celestia grumbled, finishing her scan of the room. A five-hundred year-old tapestry hanging from the side of the room combusted there and then. Celestia turned back to the door. “Had to happen sometime, I suppose. I hear you, you blessed little nuisance.”
The magic permeating the room vanished, and the door abruptly caved into flying splinters. The ponies hammering at it flew back screaming as Luna flew in like an avenging god, eyes blazing with an unearthly white fire. The other Celestia flapped in behind her, wincing and helping the fallen ponies up with her magic.
Celestia ignored their entrance, instead fixating on the hipflask that had fallen from Jet Set’s saddlebag. It appeared before her in a flash, and she sipped appreciatively at it as she collapsed back into the throne.
Luna flapped slowly in mid-air as the room’s pandemonium sunk in. She regarded the terrified supplicants, the scattered wood splinters and glass, the wide-eyed Capric ambassador, the burning tapestry, and finally the alicorn flopped backwards over the throne.
“Celestia, what in all accursed hells have thou done?!”
“Been myself,” drawled Celestia. She raised the hipflask in the direction of the other Celestia, winking as she did so. “And you’re welcome.”
“So,” started Applejack as the train wove through the mountains leading to Canterlot, “Why do you think it was Princess Luna that sent the letter rather than Celestia? Has she ever done that before?”
“No, she hasn’t. I hope Celestia isn’t indisposed,” replied Twilight Sparkle, frowning as she paced from one side of the carriage to the other. “Luna mentioned another crisis. Maybe that’s what it is? Perhaps Celestia’s been hurt, and something about the Elements of Harmony can help her.”
“Yeah, maybe. Or maybe she’s just super-busy with ruling the country, and whatever this crisis is, it’s taking up more of her attention.” Rainbow Dash, who had managed to contort herself into a comfortable resting position on one of the hard train seats, shrugged. “This might not be anything special – or, you know, be at the lower end of the spectrum for special when it comes to summons from one of the princesses.”
“’The realm is in crisis’ does suggest a matter of some urgency.” Rarity sat directly across from the pegasus. “So soon after the whole matter with the changelings and Twilight’s brother’s wedding, as well. Perhaps they’re the ones at fault, and the princess has been compromised somehow. Ugh. That’s not a pleasant thought.”
“Chin up, everypony!” Pinkie Pie chirped. “We’re good at this sort of thing now, remember? We vanquish evil world-destroying things practically every day before breakfast now, thanks to the Elements. Though, y’know, not actually before every breakfast since that was just a teensy bit of an exaggeration for rhetorical effect. Boy, imagine really fighting world-ending threats every day before breakfast. You’d just get tired. And hungry.”
“Tangents aside, ain’t much use in speculating ‘till we know more than nothing. Best just to hope it’s nothing serious and to prepare in case it’s exactly that,” replied Applejack, looking out the window at the approaching towers of Canterlot before she turned away with a sigh.
Fluttershy said, quietly, “I think I just saw one of the palace’s windows explode.”
A moment’s silence followed, terminated by a collective “WHAT?”
“And, um, it looks like there’s flames coming out.”
The discussion until they finally arrived took on a slightly more feverish tone, with Rainbow Dash repeatedly trying to open a window so she could fly out and take a closer look herself, and having to be deterred from doing so via fervent persuasion, pleading, and eventually the application of Applejack’s full body weight to her lower back.
“T’aint nothing personal, sugarcube. But let’s not have you fly off and make the acquaintance of whatever’s causing that all by your lonesome, hmm?” said Applejack as her personal and family honour were repeatedly called into question by the pinned pegasus beneath her.
“Mass teleportation over an extended distance,” muttered Twilight, her anxiety converted entirely into furious calculation as purple motes floated around her horn. “Approximately four hundred metres in a straight line from the train station to the front of the palace. Allow margin of error, compensate for inherent gravitational resistance, assume everypony wants to arrive roughly intact …”
The train slowed, and then stopped at Canterlot’s station’s platform.
“…Now,” breathed Twilight, and the six vanished in a flash of purple light.
They reappeared at the front of the palace, and were nearly swept away by the flood of retreating servants and courtiers they found themselves amidst.
“Flee! Flee for the love of the vicious and neglectful Creator that made us!”
“Abandon all hope! Abandon the dream of civilisation! Weep at the wicked fate that saw fit to craft that dream in the first place!”
“It’s not natural! And it’s immoral! And … and it’s wrong! Unnaturally and immorally wrong!”
“The horror! The horror!”
“What in the name of – get behind me, everypony!” Applejack stood like a stone column amidst the screaming tide, and set her sights upon the palace doors. She bludgeoned a path clear for the others obliged to walk behind her.
“To your left!” cried out Rainbow Dash, flapping madly above her with Fluttershy by her side. “It’s clearer that way!”
With a grunt, Applejack bulled her way through the panicking mob amidst a flurry of shoves and expertly-placed kicks, escaping into a relatively open space along with the others. The main doorway into the palace yawned open before them.
“Right,” said Twilight with grim determination, more arcane light playing around her horn, ready to be unleashed in an eye’s blink. She trotted in; the others close at her back. “Stick close, everypony. I don’t know what we’re going to find, so assume it’s dangerous. We’ll try and find the princesses, either one, and find out what’s going on.”
“And if we don’t? What then?” said Rainbow.
“Then we look harder. Come on!”
They neared the end of the entry hall, conspicuously empty save for several discarded items and saddlebags on the floor. Past it, a short stretch of corridor led to a grand room containing a spiralling staircase which, Twilight knew, would take them to the upper levels and to the throne room.
Within that room, they stopped short. At the base of the staircase, two figures stood in deep discussion. One of them, tall and white-coated and with a mane like the sky in dawn, was immediately recognisable.
“Princess Celestia!” Twilight blurted out in sheer relief, immediately galloping forwards. The princess turned at the shout, happiness breaking across her own face like a sunbeam as well. The other figure she’d been engaged in conversation with, a bespectacled unicorn with a green-and-teal banded coat, seemed irritated by the intrusion.
“My dearest student, I’m glad you could make it,” said Celestia, leaning down to briefly nuzzle Twilight. Twilight noticed in that moment that Celestia wasn’t wearing her regalia. No golden tiara, collar or shoes adorned her, leaving her looking strangely naked. “Luna is currently containing the situation upstairs. Myself and Professor Stiff Strut here -” the unicorn nodded, “- were discussing the mechanics of the situation and waiting for your arrival. Hopefully, the Elements can resolve this.”
“What is this, princess?” Rarity said, trotting up to beside Twilight.
“Thiswould be a textbook example of why dabbling in experimental ancient spellcraft is a horrible idea, to be done only by professionals or the expendable,” said Stiff Strut archly, flicking a violet strand of mane out of his eyes. “One enters my field of study exalting Starswirl as a paragon of ponykind; one comes through further study to regard him as a moron.”
“Peace, professor,” said Celestia gently. She sighed. “This may not be entirely easy to explain. Are you six well-versed in psychology?”
Hesitant nods or head-shakes came from five of the six Element Bearers. Twilight nodded enthusiastically.
“Twilight, did you read much of Suspect Focus’s work?”
“Suspect Focus? Only for a historical grounding. I thought he was generally regarded as a bit of a crank nowadays.” Twilight pulled whatever she could recall from memory. “I remember he founded a lot of therapeutic techniques, had some weird ideas about dreams and memories which were largely proven wrong, had that whole idea about the impulse versus the conscience -”
“That particular idea was what I was hoping you’d recall,” said Celestia. “How our conscious selves are merely a compromise between two great facets of who we are. Our impulsive self, containing all of our immediate aggressions and loves and fleeting fixations. And our higher conscience, devoted to higher matters of morality and the rules and plans we make for ourselves.”
“I remember that. But why is it important?” Twilight looked bewildered.
From upstairs, there came the sound of shattering glass and a cry of “More paint-stripper!”
“So I have several questions,” said Twilight as she and Celestia trotted along the passages leading to the throne room. The other five, along with Stiff Strut, had raced to where the Elements of Harmony were being kept in storage.
“I’d be surprised if you didn’t.” Celestia’s stride was smooth and unhurried, perfectly regal.
“What are we dealing with, exactly? An evil clone of yourself?”
“No.” Celestia sighed. “Suspect Focus’s focus didn’t assign the two halves of a pony’s mind any such subjective labels. Neither do my other half or I fit them. We are each lesser than the Celestia you know, but still purely of her. Think of it this way. I am what I – Celestia - holds up as the ideal she must live up to. Every musing on matters beyond the next few moments, every consideration and act of forethought. The threads of her conscience, every scrap of morality she has assembled over a very, very long time. I am what Celestia feels she ought to do.”
Twilight was silent for a moment. Then, “And that makes the other Celestia?”
“She is what Celestia wants to do.”
The door to the throne room loomed ever closer. There seemed to be a great deal of muffled shouting coming from behind it.
“Bear that in mind when you speak to her. I intend to approach her with tact and diplomacy, but we needs must consider what she will respond to. Appeal to affection and her gentler instincts, rather than issues of higher morality or the good of many. And she – I – a pox on the pronouns of this situation – we will respond to you with affection, feel no fear. Perhaps she will be made to peacefully consent to the application of the Elements of Harmony in resolving this whole matter.”
Twilight looked up at the alicorn, who kept an aloof distance from her here in the quietness of the corridor. “You are a lot like the whole Celestia. Different in some ways, don’t get me wrong, but I get the impression she uses you a lot more than whatever I’m about to meet.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” said Celestia, smiling gently. The door rose before them. She gestured at it with a hoof. “Shall we?”
Twilight breathed out. She could do this. The sight of Princess Celestia – a Princess Celestia – doing things that wouldn’t have otherwise intruded on Twilight’s mental model of Celestia in the lifespan of the universe shouldn’t disturb her too much. She wouldn’t have to spend too much time in therapy after this. Probably.
Twilight reached out with her magic and opened the throne room’s door.
She was greeted by the sight of the long marble floor strewn with ashes, the fragments of half-burned tapestries and hangings trailing from the ceiling. Glass shards glinted amongst them, and she saw that several of the stained glass windows had been shattered.
Past a thin haze of smoke, she could see the shapes of two alicorns near the throne, with something in between them.
“Do not give her the spirits! She has had quite enough, and does not deserve them in any event!” The one on the left could have only been Princess Luna, her Royal Canterlot Voice decidedly hoarse around the edges.
“My sparkly flank I’ve had enough! Wheel that trolley over here!”
Trotting cautiously closer, Twilight peered past the smoke and was able to pick out the distinct figures of the two princesses, Luna at the side of the room and Celestia on the other. This Celestia had the accoutrements of state the other Celestia lacked, but her posture seemed more relaxed.
Between them both, a terrified-looking earth pony maid stood paralysed behind a wheeled drinks cabinet.
“As Princess of the Night, I order thou to not move one step towards her!”
“Your princess commands you to deliver her bloody whisky!”
The maid, who couldn’t have come so much as approximately close to anticipating this situation in her training or subsequent service, looked as though she were about to burst into tears.
“Princess Celestia?” Twilight called out.
The Celestia in the throne room looked in her direction. For a moment, her expression was one of brief irritation after looking away from the alcohol to this distraction.
Then her face broke into a smile that outshone the dawn, and Twilight barely got to comprehend the sudden grab of magic all about her before she abruptly appeared before Celestia. White legs unfolded and seized Twilight in a sudden tight embrace, and white wings came around to cocoon her.
“Gcck,” managed Twilight.
“Shush, my most faithful student. Give your princess a hug,” said Celestia gently, nuzzling the top of Twilight’s head and narrowly missing her horn. “How’ve you been?”
“Fine. Still studying. Somewhat air-deprived,” Twilight squeaked.
“Sister, let her go,” Luna said wearily, the Royal Canterlot Voice falling like a weight from her shoulders. “She’s growing purple. Purpler, rather.”
“Whoops, sorry,” said Celestia, releasing Twilight. “I don’t do that as much as I should. It needed doing.” She lifted her head, and glared at the Celestia standing in the doorway.
“You know there are reasons for the decorum,” said the Celestia in the doorway. “And you know that there are other important reasons to try and maintain a little detachment. We are immortal, and our sanity is often all we have. If we become attached again and again -”
“Stick our sanity where our sun doesn’t shine. It’s hardly done much for our happiness,” snapped the Celestia holding Twilight.
“After a few generations had come and gone, attachment would prove unbearable,” replied Celestia softly.
Celestia grunted dismissively before smiling back down at Twilight. “I value and love you very much, Twilight. If I ever hear you’ve been working yourself into a tizzy over disappointing me again, I’ll smack some sense into that pretty lavender head of yours.”
“I … er … thank you, princess?” said Twilight. She drew in a breath. She had a duty here. “I was going to ask you something. For something. As a favour.”
“Ask for anything, my faithful student, and I shall cross the Black Ocean, roll dice with Discord, and plunge into the Abyss itself to place it in your hooves.” Celestia’s smile was bright and guileless.
“I’m …” Twilight took a moment to collect herself, taken aback by what this unfettered and open Celestia would do for her. “I’m here with my friends from Ponyville. We were called here by Princess Luna to try and reverse the accident that split you and your double apart.”
Celestia nodded. Something brittle had entered the cast of her smile, but she maintained it with only a brief glare in Luna’s direction. “Ah. I see. Luna mentioned all the grisly details, did she? Told you to put us back together with the Elements, did she?”
“Not exactly. She just mentioned that there was a crisis that needed us to come to Canterlot. I met your double when we were coming into the palace. She explained the situation and how we might be able to use the Elements to fix it -”
She was cut off then. One of Celestia’s hooves pressed gently against her mouth. The princess, still smiling a brittle smile, stood straight once more.
“Can’t grudge you spilling the details with our sister,” she said to the Celestia in the doorway. “She’d have probably figured the details out, tried to put us back together in any case. She was involved from the get-go; no fault for conspiring with her to snuff me out.”
“We both know that -” said the other Celestia.
“But then you did something very stupid,” said Celestia, her smile slipping away, her voice still soft. “You decided to recruit Twilight Sparkle and get her to do the deed. Get her to destroy me before we’ve lived. Make me have to confront her.”
Her smile vanished altogether. Her eyes flashed golden. The muscles under her white coat tensed, ever-so-slightly.
For a brief moment, looking into Celestia’s face, Twilight had the fleeting mental image of the whole world burning down.
“There wasn’t another recourse.” The Celestia in the doorway stood stiff and unflinching.
The instant later, a yellow-blazing fireball, the heat of which was sufficient to crisp Twilight’s eyebrows from a distance away in the brief moment it lasted, sprang out at that Celestia. It smacked her right off her hooves and she flapped backwards, blinking but utterly unharmed. She fixated the Celestia next to the stunned Twilight with a look halfway between reproach and annoyance.
“You just hit me with a portion of our own sun’s power. What did you think that was going to achieve?”
“Not going to lie, I was hoping for a bit of pain, a bit of running around screaming with your wings on fire and your horn melting down your face, that sort of thing.” Celestia stepped past Twilight, her wings flaring and her stance becoming lower and more predatory. “Suppose I’ll just have to get creative.”
“Princess!” Twilight seized hold of the back of Celestia’s leg as she swept past. It was like trying to hold back an avalanche; the most she could hope for would be to get the princess’s attention. “Don’t attack yourself!”
Celestia’s great head craned around to regard Twilight, her eyes still simmering like embers. “But it’ll be both productive and therapeutic. Why ever not?”
Twilight’s mouth opened and closed several times as she sought for an answer. Finally, “...it would make me sad? And leave deep-seated trauma from seeing you fight yourself?”
Celestia blinked, and her eyes had been restored to their gentle magenta hue. The tenseness in her subsided. She glared back at the other Celestia.
“You ought to be thanking our student,” she growled. “There’s nothing apart from her and her adorable face keeping me from beating you into paste, you underhooved dungstain.”
“I was rather hoping thine consideration would take mine own adorable face into account as well, dearest sister,” Luna muttered.
“Your adorable face was committed to undoing me and my freedom from the get-go, dearester sister. And you helped draft Twilight Sparkle for the same purpose. You’re only my favourite sibling right now due to the technicality of being the only one.” Celestia snorted and looked around. “Also, I’m sure there was a maid here with a drinks cabinet not two minutes ago.”
“She departed. I helped.” Luna’s gaze was cool and steady. “The time for indulgence is over. Equestria needs its princess back and adequately functioning ere she can wreak more damage. Stay here, wait for the other Element Bearers to come, and this can all be put to rest.”
“Equestria’s a big country. It can take care of itself. In fact, why don’t you and Shackles here -” Celestia indicated Celestia, “- take care of it yourselves? This spell is temporary besides, so don’t worry about Equestria never getting one more miserable princess back. I’m going to spend some time indulging in indulgence before that happy hour, thank you kindly.”
“For the good of the realm, I will restrain thee if I must,” said Luna, stepping forwards. Dark magical energies flickered around her horn.
Celestia snorted. “No,” she said. “No, you couldn’t.”
Hoofsteps sounded from the direction of the door, and everypony’s attention turned there. The other five Element Bearers had arrived, Elements already donned. The Element of Magic was held by Rarity in an aura of magic. She tossed it to Twilight, who swiftly seized it and settled it atop her own head.
“Woah,” said Rainbow Dash, glancing from one Celestia to the other. “This is freaky.”
“Don’t worry, Princesses Celestias!” Pinkie Pie sang. “We’ll get you fixed quicker than blinking!”
The Celestia in the throne room shook her head with another laugh.
“Nothing personal, you lovable bunch of lunatics, but I’d rather not be at hoof when that happens. I believe I’ll now take my egress and see what Canterlot has to offer by way of entertainment. Don’t worry; I’ll be back later to meet and greet you all.” She winked at Fluttershy. “Especially you, gorgeous.”
“What?" trilled Fluttershy in the exact instant that Twilight cried, “Get ready, everypony!” in the same instant that Luna and the other Celestia yelled, “Stop, don’t you dare -!”
The instant after, Celestia vanished amidst a torrent of golden fire.
The ensuing curse from Luna shattered the remaining windows.
“Alright, let’s not get into unwarranted panicking here,” said Applejack, once an emergency meeting had been arranged a few minutes later. They stood around a circular table in Luna’s own royal office. “How dangerous is she on the loose? Let’s get a clear estimate of that.”
“She’s only a demigoddess princess with power over the sun, the magic of a hundred unicorns, the strength of a hundred earth ponies, and the swiftness of a hundred pegasi,” said Stiff Strut, who was muttering and poring over Starswirl’s notes with Twilight. “We’ll be fine, I’m sure.”
“She’s more likely to damage herself and others in her current state,” said Princess Luna. “Magnify that potential damage by the might of an alicorn. Securing and healing her must be our utmost priority.”
“How likely is she to damage others, though? We know Princess Celestia. Unwarranted violence just isn’t … well, her style,” said Rarity.
“No,” said the Celestia at the table with them. “It’s not my style. Do you wear your ugliest impulses in the light of day, try to adopt them and condone them as part of who you are? There have been occasions – far too many – where the whole Celestia brought battle against Equestria’s foes, and those times were not always grudging. Violence isn’t alien to our nature. Far from it.”
“Count that as an additional difficulty in bringing her to heel.” Luna sat in consideration. “She would be especially eager to fight herself, though. If thou were to act as bait to draw her out, then I could assist in containing her while the Elements are readied.”
“A fair plan, though we do not know if she’s currently receptive to bait. She may be otherwise distracted by something or somepony.”
“Then let there be a sweep of the city with the combined Dayguard and Nightguard forces currently on duty,” said Luna, bringing forth the magically-glowing lines of a map of Canterlot on the table before them. “Captains Eyewall and Tenebrae will have to be summoned to this meeting so that we may outline an approach. What is it?”
The muttering between Twilight and Stiff Strut had reached an anxious fever pitch, and both stiffened upon being called to by Luna.
“The spell’s parameters indicate an additional complication,” said Stiff Strut. “Unless our comprehension of the sygaldry and thaumic mathematics involved is completely wrong, Starstupid the Bearded designed this to work within three standard deviations of the average for latent arcane potential in ponies. Alicorns, you must agree, go quite a bit beyond that.”
A pin fell from an improperly placed pincushion and echoed in the silence.
“Basically, this spell wasn’t designed to work with alicorns. It could partition their minds, but it couldn’t handle the complexities of putting them back together again,” said Twilight. She gulped, her eyes wide. “I don’t want to think about the implications, but -”
“Divided wills. Madness. Surrendering to our Nightmare to make the chaos and sadness finally depart.” Princess Luna’s voice was like a stone dropped into a cold pool. “We are acquainted with the worst of the implications.”
“So … there’s not going to be a smooth joining-together once the spell’s time limit is reached?” said Applejack. “It’s really gonna be an Elements job or nothing, huh.”
“Looks like it,” said Twilight quietly. “And if we don’t work fast, then Celestia could be damaged – or worse - forever.”
“No pressure,” added Stiff Strut.
Stalwart had his back turned to the door of his bar when he heard it open. He sneaked a glance at a clock; it was early in the afternoon as yet.
“A bit early in the day, isn’t it?” said the earth pony stallion, preoccupied as he finished polishing rows of bottles with a dirty cloth.
“Of all ponies, I think I get to decide what’s early in the day and what isn’t,” came the clear, female voice of the customer.
The earth pony stallion turned with a chuckle. “I’m sure Celestia might have a thing or two to say … regarding … that.” He looked up. “Oh.”
“There’s something deeply and unintentionally funny about what you just said,” said the Paramount of Equestria and the Dominions Thereof, Sol-Wielder and Dawn Bringer, who had all of a sudden wandered into his bar. “You’ll get the joke soon, most like. For now, pour a thirsty mare a drink.”
Stalwart nodded, his mouth suddenly dry and his mind in complete revolt. Bartending autopilot smoothly took over. “C – certainly, your Majesty. Could I get you a glass of wine? We’ve got reds, whites, and rosés. Some good Ovish brandy? Whisky? A few bottles arrived from Corva just yesterday. There’s a bottle of honey mead from Zebrica I’m sure I could fish out, if you’d like?”
“Ooh, such choice,” said Princess Celestia, settling her full weight into a creaking bar stool. “You know, we’re about to do something, you and I, that hasn’t been attempted in – goodness, I don’t know how long now.”
“What is it, your Majesty?”
“We are about to see what it takes to get an alicorn drunk. Start with the brandy. Brandy till my back teeth float.”
The empty bottle slammed base-down on the wooden countertop. Dusk light spilling in from the dingy windows sent its long shadow skittering across the bar.
“I think I might be feeling something,” slurred the bar’s one and only customer that day. All others had fled with muted screams and backwards bows.
Stalwart looked around at the piles of bottles crowding out the other sides of the bar, enough to lethally intoxicate an entire Legion. “That wouldn’t surprise me, your Majesty.”
“Bugger me, this alicorn business really does give me a high threshold,” muttered Celestia, with emphasis on the ‘sh’. “What – what’s next? You mentioned a thing about another thing in a bottle. Zebras. Honey.”
“The Zebrican tej?” said Stalwart, glancing at the dusty golden bottle on the shelves behind him, one of the few full ones remaining.
“That’s the bastard. Sling it over.”
Stalwart hesitated, trying to find the least potentially treasonous way to broach the matter with the princess. “Your Majesty, is it not possible that you’ve maybe had enough?”
“Y –you see that thing? The sun?” said Celestia, leaning back on her stool and waving one hoof vaguely in the direction of a window.
“Yes, your Majesty.”
“Well, it’s just about finished setting, and when it rises again or when I’ve drunk all the drink you’ve got, then I’ll have had enough.”
Stalwart passed over the tej. Celestia yanked off its cork, sniffed at the bottle’s rim, and knocked back a long and generous swig. She set it back down two-thirds full.
“Can't ‘member the last time I had some,” she muttered. “Eighty years, maybe? Zebrica and Gazellen were bickering about something, called for me as an impartial mediator. Poured my heart and soul into making sure they didn’t come to blows.” She studied the motes drifting through the golden liguid.
“They gave me a few bottles of this. Went to war ten years later anyway.” She snorted. Stalwart couldn’t tell whether it was from bitterness or mirth. “Not sure where most of the bottles now are. Probably gathering dust in a corner of the wine cellar. Maybe Grape Vine threw them out on the sly. He was always a bit of a wine purist.”
“Grape Vine?” said Stalwart.
“My butler. Was my butler.” Celestia looked downcast briefly, and then frowned. “No, hang on, I’m thinking of the one before him. Amphora. No, she was the old battle-axe …” She looked imploringly up at Stalwart. “Hold on a moment, I need to sort out my butlers in my head.”
Stalwart slowly nodded. Celestia looked back down at the tej. “I’ve had a lot,” she murmured. “Lots and lots. They get jumbled. Most ponies do, after a while.”
She glared at the tej as if it had done her a personal injury, seized it by its neck with her magic, and knocked back another gulp. The force of it being slammed back down rattled the whole counter.
“You want some life advice?” she snapped at Stalwart, who stood still as he tried to polish a glass. “Don’t become a bloody princess. The world’ll queue up to feed you dung through a hosepipe. Ambassadors and ministers whining at you every minute of every day, wondering why you haven’t meekly handed them the world on a silver gilted fancy platter yet. Good ponies dying, one after the other, and you can’t keep track of them all no matter how much they all deserve it. Centuries gnawing on your patience like a swarm of nibbling beetles.” A swig of the tej and an indrawn breath followed.
“And you can’t take a breather, not one single day of rest and wine and fun without whatever wheedling part of you is keeping you in the game making you feel guilty. Guilty about what you’ve already given to everypony else! What you’ll keep on giving. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I’ve poured blood into building harmony, my own and others, and how often do I get the chance to lie back and let it all work itself out?”
She picked up the bottle but didn’t drink from it. She swirled it around in the air, watching the liquid swish to and fro.
“And after one and a half thousand years of work, that’s just harmony in the one country. The path of peace, negotiation, proportionate retaliation in defence, bringing grumblers round a table, all that dreariness going on and on and on. One country. Most others still don’t have harmony. Some have nothing.”
Celestia held the bottle still. The liquid settled.
“There was a time I could have done it, you know,” she said quietly. “Time when, just after I had to banish Luna and Equestria was nearly tearing itself apart, a time when I could have done it. Nearly done it. Thrown negotiation to the wind and spread harmony at lance point. Make the world take its bloody medicine.”
She finished the tej with one long, rattling drag, and threw the bottle to one side. Glass shards scattered across the floor.
“Maybe I should still do it,” she whispered, her eyes glowing gold for a moment, just a moment. “Get Luna on board. Make the world tremble at alicornkind unleashed and with one mind. Tear the sun from their skies and give them ours instead. They’d even thank me for it, in the end.”
The glow subsided, and Celestia sank slightly.
“But that won’t happen. Few more hours, and I’ll be back with one mind, back to making myself miserable.” She took hold of every bottle around her and lifted them up, as if in salute. “Hurrah for the future.”
One wine bottle which still seemed to have a sip’s worth in it bobbed over before her.
Metal-shod hoofsteps sounded on the pavement outwith the bar. From behind her, there came the sound of the door opening. Stalwart looked to the doorway and his eyes widened. Celestia didn’t bother turning around.
“Best if you leave quickly, barkeep,” came the low voice of the Dayguard’s commander, Captain Eyewall. “If this becomes a ruckus, the Crown will compensate you for any damages. Go.”
Stalwart quickly took his leave, as ranks of brightly-armoured Dayguard and dark Nightguard began to cautiously filter into the bar.
“You here to keep me company in a rough part of town, captain?” Celestia smirked. “Chivalrous of you. Remind me to commend you for a medal in first-class chivalry.”
“Your Majesty, please come with me back to the palace,” said Eyewall, who trotted up to her side. “Princess Luna and Twilight Sparkle beseech you to return.”
“Of course they do,” muttered Celestia, not shifting from her seat. “I imagine they’re waiting just outside, in case I don’t come meekly?”
Captain Eyewall hesitated. “Your Majesty -”
“Peace, captain. No fault to you for doing your duty as ordered by a Princess of Equestria. What if, hypothetically, I was to order you in my own capacity as a Princess of Equestria to wander off elsewhere?”
“With all due respect, your Majesty, I would remember my other orders and the peril your condition poses to yourself and Equestria, and hope that you would forgive me later.”
Celestia swirled the dregs in the bottle before her, all the other upheld bottles unconsciously mimicking the movement.
“Well,” she said softly, “As the great general Oriflamme once remarked and subsequently had tidied up for her by prude historians, ‘If we die this day, die clawing off your enemy’s vulnerables and spitting in their faces.’ Not that I’ll be quite as severe.”
She was aware of Eyewall tensing. Of ranks closing in at her back. Of spells being readied and wings creaking as unicorns and pegasi prepared to come charging in.
“Enough dithering, captain,” said another voice at her back. One of the School for Gifted Unicorn’s professors, Stiff Strut or the like. “Take her in and we can get this all settled.”
“You know, you collect a lot of fancy words over a lifespan. Especially my lifespan.” Celestia absently wiggled the wine bottle, paying closer regard to the reflections on either side of her distorted face. “Does anypony here still know what a ‘scrimmage’ is?”
There were a few shaken heads, as well as one terrified nod.
Every bottle rose at once, tightly gripped by the golden magic. Unseen, Celestia smiled a lean, wolfish smile.
“SHOW AND TELL!”
And in that instant, she descended upon the guards in the exact way the sunset doesn’t.
Raindrops pattered down on Luna, Celestia, and the Element Bearers. They stood in a grey city square on the outskirts of Canterlot, facing the exterior of a fairly run-down bar. Several squadrons of Dayguard and Nightguard under the command of Captain Tenebrae waited around them.
Light spilled out of the bar’s windows. So did a lot of screaming. At one point, a Nightguard came out that way as well amidst a shower of glass.
Combing the city had finally found the bar Celestia had holed up in. Changing the sun’s position in the sky hadn’t drawn her attention. Captain Eyewall, however, hadn’t been talked out of marching straight in.
“Shouldn’t we go in to help?” yelled Twilight, catching the guard with her magic and depositing his groaning form in the hooves of a waiting medical team. “No disrespect, but I’m kind of wondering why she actually needs them in the first place!”
“She won’t hurt them badly. Let them draw her out,” said Celestia. “We can then attend to her and pin her in place, while the Elements do their work.”
They waited in silence, while more yelling and the sound of several heads being slammed into one another at once pealed from the bar.
It showed no sign of ending in the few minutes that passed. The initial chaotic medley of crashing and screams that had initially issued seemed to have acquired a rough rhythm. A steady clattering noise accompanied by pained wailing punctuated what sounded like the other Celestia singing.
“’Twas on the good ship Equinus!” Crashing, screaming. “By the stars, you should have seen us!” A Dayguard flew face-first out of a window. “The figurehead was a broodmare in bed!” Gold and violet light flashed through the windows. “And the mast was a rampant -!”
“Right,” snapped Captain Tenebrae, a slight and black-coated unicorn mare. “Get ready, troops. Unicorns, on my mark, blast out the door and the remaining windows. Try and keep pressure on the princess with stunning blasts. On three! One, two, three!”
A volley of multi-coloured arcane blasts thundered into the building’s front. The door and windows were simply blasted out of existence.
Past them, guards lay in assorted concussed and moaning heaps over the available surfaces, while a few still standing seemed to be trying to rally themselves once more. A screaming blur that looked suspiciously like Professor Stiff Strut surrounded by a shimmering golden aura flashed into them, knocking them to the ground.
“The captain of this lugger - what’s this? Are we destroying the building now?” laughed the other Celestia, hidden past the brick wall. “Challenge accepted!”
Golden light flashed out of every gap and crevice the building’s front had to offer, briefly blinding Twilight. The crumbling of stone came on its heels like a roll of thunder. The building’s entire front collapsed in a cascade of bricks and dust, several encroaching guards jumping back from it.
From amidst the dust clouds, metal shoes crushing bricks underhoof, fire-eyed Celestia strode forth as if spat out of an ancient saga. The discombobulated Stiff Strut lazily rotating around her head and whimpering, “Why am I not dead yet?” only detracted from the effect a little.
“Who’s next?” said Celestia, brandishing the unicorn like a bludgeoning implement. “Is one little bar brawl all I’m getting?” She looked from Luna to her double, her gaze glancing right over the Element Bearers.
Twilight tensed herself, ready for action. Luna didn’t reply. She gestured, and Captain Tenebrae and the guards under her command reluctantly took several steps back. Dark wings spread, and Luna crept closer. The other Celestia simply whispered out of existence, with a faint flash of fire.
“Stand down, sister,” Luna implored. “I would fain avoid battle this -”
Celestia threw Stiff Strut at her. Luna's entreaty dissolved into a startled yell as the professor hit her with enough force to send the two tumbling backwards amidst a mad thrashing tangle of limbs.
“You never listen! Don’t talk during your battles!” Celestia shouted. “If I’ve been telling you one thing for all these years -”
She never finished her sentence. The other Celestia came at her in a blur, slamming into her side and lifting her off her hooves with mountain-shattering force. Crown and shoes and shattered collar flew in all directions as the alicorns whirled to one side, simultaneous cries of pain and anger coming from two identical throats.
Rainbow Dash started forward, to be restrained by Applejack’s teeth around her tail. “Wait!” cried Twilight. “Wait until they’re grappling with each other!”
But try as she might to make sense of the unfolding duel and predict when that would happen, the speed both Celestias could apparently move at made that all but impossible. One instant they were staggering upright on the cobblestones and facing one another down; one hunched and angry and feral, the other poised and cold. The next, they lunged at each other. Long legs lashed out at lightning speed with enough force to kill a normal pony or mildly shudder a Celestia, white teeth snapped at whiter throats, dawn-coloured manes and tails trailed around them like whirling shrouds.
“Yield!” blazed one of them. “For Equestria’s sake, you will yield! You will allow us to reform! Our – life – is – duty!”
“Duty, reformation, sake of Equestria, do go on!” rasped the other. “Make chains! Pretty them up with petals! That’s all you ever do!”
Which one had said what was lost suddenly as they threw themselves at each other, crashing to the ground as they wrestled and snarled. Celestia managed to pin Celestia beneath her, and brought one hoof down on her chest with enough force to send cracks shivering through the stones beneath. Celestia choked out a lungful of breath, but managed to jab out her own hoof to strike Celestia in the throat. Celestia toppled back, coughing wretchedly, whereupon Celestia rose and plunged after the stricken Celestia.
“Now!” Twilight shouted. “Now, girls!”
Tapping into the magic of the Element of Magic was starting to become as easy as breathing to her. The magic from the tiara rushed down into her, suffusing all of what she was. She felt the thrum of magic through her core, was aware of the others tapping into their own elements.
She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, they shone brighter than stars.
Magic poured from her in one arcane stream, intertwining with Honesty, Loyalty, Generosity, Laughter, and Kindness. As if in slow motion, they united to form one rainbow-hued torrent of power. Like a comet, it descended.
There was a scream of despair from one of the struggling Celestias in the instant before it impacted with them.
And then the scream was abruptly cut off, and there was nothing but a deafening hush and rapidly fading light.
Consciousness hit Celestia like a mugging.
The interior of her head seemed to have been lined with steel wool and acid. Her tongue and mouth tasted heavy and unpleasant. Something sat queasily in her stomach. From outside, a bird twittered, and its song was like a razor being drawn across her eardrums.
She opened her eyes and immediately regretted it.
“Gllaaaaarrrgh,” she ventured, before realising that that was very un-Princess-like. A thin sheet covered her, and she tried to withdraw into it.
She was in her bedchamber, Celestia felt confident of piecing together that much. But for the life of her, she couldn’t recall why she was in such a state.
There came a sudden pounding on the door of her room, like a giant was slamming cymbals together against her skull.
“Creator’s quill, no,” Celestia whispered. “Go away. Your princess is indisposed. Take it to Luna, whatever it is. Go away.”
The door creaked open regardless. “Sister?” said a familiar voice.
Celestia poked her head out from under the covers. “Luna?”
“How does the morning find thee?” said Luna casually, closing the door behind her as she trotted up to Celestia’s bedside. She bore several papers by her side in an aura of magic.
“Like it loathes me personally,” croaked Celestia. “What – what happened? Was I assailed by something?”
Luna regarded her. “How much of yesterday do thou recall?”
“Not much. Please don’t make me think right now. My brain feels tender.”
A smirk played around the edges of Luna’s features. “Ah. Then perhaps I may read some of thine upcoming tasks for today and some reports from Minister Elusive. They might jog thine memory.”
“Yes, yes, go on then.” Celestia considered ringing a bell for a servant to fetch her coffee, but the thought of physical exertion and the sound of the bell made her briefly consider self-immolation.
“Well,” started Luna, pulling out one of the pieces of paper. “Firstly, thou owest a publican a substantial amount of bits for damages to his property and premises. A full accounting was done, and thirteen thousand bits from the accounts of the Royal Household should be enough to cover it.”
“Thirteen thou - ? Damages?”
“Secondly, there are a number of ponies thou should consider drafting personal letters of apology to, comprising most of our personal guard as well as Professor Stiff Strut of thine school. Most of them suffered assault upon their persons by thine own hooves. Sir Stratus of thine Dayguard, as well as Fluttershy the Element Bearer to a lesser capacity, must be rendered remorse for unwarranted affectionate conduct. Silver Tongue of Manehattan’s traders should also be appeased for undeservedly hostile conduct towards her.”
“Unwarranted – what did I do last night? Luna?”
“Lord Jet Set and Lady Upper Crust were also among the ponies offended yesterday. They have apparently threatened to withdraw their contribution to this year’s Grand Galloping Gala. Absent that, the occasion may not go ahead at all, I fear.”
Celestia didn’t respond immediately, the dark tides of confused horror meeting the sunny shores of an unexpected windfall. “Oh, woe?” she said after a while. “I must find the strength to cope, somehow.”
“Lastly,” said Luna, drawing forth the last sheet of paper, “An update from Intelligence Minster Elusive on the crisis in the Asinial Marches.”
“Oh, skyfire, don’t be at war, don’t be at war, don’t be at war,” muttered Celestia fervently under her breath.
“Negotiations for an honourable peace are set to open up again between the Capricious Crown and the Asinial Arch-Minister. The Crown’s armies have been withdrawn from Asinia’s borders. Indeed, they have withdrawn so far back that they’re now practically invading Bovaland.”
Celestia’s mouth opened and shut a few times. “… How?”
Luna gave Celestia a frank look of appraisal. “What is the last thing thou remember, Tia?”
“I was … in the throne room, talking to ponies? No, after that I was talking to Twilight and her friends … or was that before the throne room? Everything yesterday is quite frankly a blur.”
Luna sighed and leaned down next to the bed. “If I may be frank, sister, I suspect some of thine deficient faculties may be due to a truly prodigious hangover. As well as other reasons.” She leaned forwards, a gentle white light building around the tip of her horn. “I can help with the former, at least.”
“Hangover? Don’t be ridiculous, Luna. I haven’t drunk to excess in decades. I’m hardly about to indulge on a whim -”
Luna tapped her horn against Celestia’s. All of a sudden, it was as if a clean, purifying music had filled Celestia’s soul. The fog and cobwebs in her mind vanished with but a whisper. The world ceased to torment. Her memory …
Luna watched with poorly-repressed amusement as Celestia’s look of utter relief metamorphosed into horrified comprehension.
“… you mentioned a list of names?” said Celestia after a few moments of all-devouring silence.
“Indeed,” snickered Luna, passing the relevant piece of paper over. “I can attend to the matter of the publican. I could even attempt to mollify Lord Jet Set and -”
“Don’t feel obliged to prioritise the latter,” Celestia said quickly. “I can attend to him and Lady Upper Crust in my own time. Letter-writing seems like a fine way to pass the morning. I’ll begin immediately.”
“I’ll see a breakfast is sent up,” said Luna, beginning to turn away.
“It also occurs that we should seal that book away. Use a two-fold lock, for which each of us will possess one of the keys.”
“I was about to suggest such myself,” said Luna, grinning. She departed then, leaving Celestia alone in the bedchamber.
Celestia levitated over a stack of paper and a fountain quill with a groan, and resolved to make no eye contact with any of her guards for at least the next few weeks as she glanced down the list of ponies she’d have to apologise to.
She brought forth the first sheet of paper and set the fountain quill to its top. A thought struck her, and she put the list aside for the moment.
There was another letter that should be written in light of all this.
My faithful student, Twilight Sparkle,
I am quite recovered, albeit somewhat embarrassed, from the events of yesterday. I thank you and your friends from the bottom of my heart for resolving the matter. Rest assured that though I may not have seemed entirely myself, everything I said to you was true, aside from the matter of smacking.
There are two convincing lessons to be gleaned from all this, I feel, and which I pass on to you. If you have any additional insights, I would welcome them. Even an old mare can, and often must, learn new tricks.
The division between what you want in the moment and what you aspire to will never be so clean-cut as what you witnessed, but the compromise between them that we reach within ourselves can reflect on who we truly are. I chose my path long ago, and I have walked it with rarely a turning, even though it came at the cost of many pleasures. Had I the chance, I would do it all over again. But you have no need to follow in my hoofsteps. I know that your own destiny will be far greater and stranger than you or I can imagine, and you must carve it yourself. Simply know that in duty there can be joy, but there is no wisdom in wearing yourself down to the breaking point.
It is okay, from time to time, to make yourself happy. Ideally, do not engage in a bar brawl to this effect.
The second and perhaps more applicable lesson is this. Meddle not lightly with arcane old spellbooks, and do not neglect to read all of the fine print.
Your affectionate teacher, Princess Celestia
PS: Please deliver my apology to Fluttershy, and assure her that it was a considered and detached aesthetic appraisal on my part, nothing more. Honestly.
