Like, Really Old
It was back again. That small little niggling feeling of a question unanswered. Of a doubt she should never have. Which was preposterous. It was obviously some sign of a stress induced bout of paranoia. Doing something impossible like growing a pair of wings and suddenly becoming the ruler of a kingdom can do that, even if you have no idea how to rule or never spent anytime studying politics or never want to be a princess in the first place-
Breath, there you go. In and out. No panicking.
She did not doubt her teacher, thank you very much. She was her most faithful student! She followed everything the princess said to the letter. To the letter! Sure, sometimes these instructions put her and her friends in danger, but the princess knows what she’s doing. Twilight knew that in her heart. Princes-, er, Celestia, was almost a second mother to her. No, she is a second mother to her. Celestia loved her and would never put her in danger on purpose. Right?
It was just-
No, a few little things and maybe a lapse in judgement or two could be forgiven. After all, Celestia is only a pony. She can make mistakes like everypony else. Yes, it was kind of weird seeing Celestia get defeated by Queen Chrysalis when Twilight had watched her take down entire battalions of armed guards be just for practice. Also, sending a baker, a weathermare, a farmer, a seamstress, and a pseudo-veterinarian to remove an adult dragon was a little dangerous. That doesn’t matter though, because everything worked out in the end.
Sure, some could say that basing the entire fate of an empire on the fact that your student had enough moral fiber to fail a test instead of creating the apocalypse was a bit much. That worked out though, so see, Celestia knew what she was doing. A pessimist might think that dooming her friends to horrible lives on the off chance that Twilight would figure out something Starswirl the Bearded couldn’t would classify as “not caring.” But Twilight knew better than that. Really, she did.
“Twilight... are you okay?” The frantically pacing mare whipped her head to the side with a crack and stared at her draconic assistant. Staring at Spike her left eye twitched slightly and a bit of her mane shot up with a cartoonish sproing. Spike nervously shifted from foot to foot and rubbed his claws together as her crazed eyes seemed to bore into his soul. Twilight blinked once. Without warning the little drakeling found himself nose to nose with the panicking mare.
“Spike, take a letter.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Celestia sat on her throne regally and gazed calmly over her empty court. Part of her was quite pleased with herself. She had spent centuries building her mask of peace and serenity for moments just like this, and herself be damned if it wasn’t holding up perfectly. Internally was a whole other story.
Dear Pr Cel Fellow Princess Celestia,
We need to talk. Now. By that I mean right now. Well not right now because I’ll need a few hours on a train to get there. So we need to talk right now in a few hours. Wait, that doesn’t make sense- Nevermind, you know what I mean.
Anyway, we need to have a serious conversation. One that may change our relationship as we know it. It could change everything! You might hate me after and then you’ll take away my wings and my kingdom and my friends and send me to magic kindergarten and what if some other evil bad guy from a thousand years ago comes back and the elements of harmony don’t work and the world ends-
Spike here, she goes on for a few more minutes but I’ll just leave it at that. Where did she even get the ability to rant like that without breathing? Seriously! She just kept going on and didn’t take a breath once!
Er, back to Twilight.
So, in conclusion, we need to talk.
Your faithful student
From,
Twilight Sparkle
Now how in the hell was she supposed to react to that? Serious conversation? Take away her wings? Magic kindergarten? Serious conversation? What was going on? Well, Celestia knew what was going on. She was enjoying her morning tea when she got the letter. The scene that followed went like this:
“Oh dear.”
“Your majesty?”
“Oh buck!”
“Princess!”
“What! Oh! You’re here. Just standing. No, guarding. Your guarding. Right, you do that. Ahem, don’t worry my little guards pony. I’m fine. Nothing to worry about. Go back to, er, standing there.”
“Are you sure you're alright, Princess?”
“Yep, just peachy. And sunny. ‘Cause I raise the sun.”
“Ummm… Yes. Yes, you do.”
“Yes I do.”
“....”
“...”
“...”
“Guard?”
“Oh! Ah, yes your majesty?”
“What day is it?”
“What? Oh, it's tuesday your majesty”
“Of course it is.”
Celestia hoped she didn’t scare that poor guard too much. It’s not everyday her little ponies see her swear. Celestia loved them to bits, but they panicked so easily. Always screaming and running about. About the dumbest things too. A dragon attacks the city? Yawn, wake me when it’s over. The perfect, infallible, never-wrong princess so much as swears? It must be the end of the world. The panicking and resulting paperwork always gave her a headache, so she avoided setting them off.
Celestia wanted to jump out of her seat and scream when the doors to the throne-room were flung open with a bang, but her perfect mask made sure her eyes only widened a little in response. She made sure her best everything-is-alright-Twilight-so-stop-panicking (and yes, that smile required it’s own category) was on her face.But when she finally focused on her student-
Oh crap!
Twilight could tell the exact moment her mentor realized how serious the situation was. Celestia didn’t know, but Twilight had spent hours as a filly studying her teacher's face and determining which expression meant what. So she watched as panic flicked through the larger alicorn's eyes when Celestia realized a calming smile wasn’t going to cut it this time.
Twilight wasn’t a cruel pony, far from it. But she would be lying if she said catching the unshakable Celestia off guard didn’t cause her a little bit of internal glee. So the tirade of epic proportions she had prepared on the train was put to the side as she basked in the moment.
She must have stood there silently in the doorway a little too long because her mentor spoke up. “My dearest Twilight, I believe you have something to discuss with me? Please, do come closer so we can chat comfortably.”
That snapped Twilight out of it and she smiled a little too wide. “Yes, our talk. That. Right. Well I’d love it if we could talk...” Twilight's voice rose and fell in pitch and cadence while she was talking, and her twitchy, uneven gait completed her psychotic look as she made her way to the throne. She finished through the gritted teeth of her too wide smile “in. Private.”
Suffice to say, all the guards were understandably scared out of their minds. When an immortal demigoddess with the magical power to buck you up buys a one way ticket to la-la land, you run for the hills.
So, without even waiting for a by-your-leave from Princess Celestia, they fled like the brave protectors they are. Twilight vaguely overheard on say “if that’s his sister, no wonder Captain Armour is fearless.”
Twilight barely paid this any attention. She thought she had prepared herself on the train, but standing before Celestia, the implication of her thoughts crashed into her with the grace of a freight train. It broke her heart.
Celestia’s mind was still reeling from the sudden departure of her guards that she almost missed what Twilight said next. Unfortunately, she heard every soft, soul shattering word. Her mind just stopped working when she heard the heart-broken whisper. Really, you could almost hear an audible crack from ancient, well oiled gears breaking. One little sentence managed to do what nothing had truly done before, it defeated her.
“Princess Celestia, do you hate me?”
What?
What?
What?!?
“What in tartarus made Twilight think I hate her?!” She frantically thought in her head-
“What do you mean by that?” Confusion radiated from the lavender mare she had come to think of as a daughter as she stated her query.
Okay, so maybe she frantically thought out loud but that works too. She looked down and thought of an elegant reply that would remove her studen-, er, fellow princesses doubts. She got ready to say her piece but “what do you mean what do I mean by that?! Why do you think I hate you?” That came out instead. Darnit.
Twilight flushed for a minute before she gathered her courage. She then explained “well it’s just I’ve been thinking lately-”oh no. Not good. Please don’t- ”and I’ve found some things that don’t make sense unless you hate me.”-say that. Oh buck.
Celestia watched in horror as Twilight continued. “Well the first thing that doesn’t make sense is how you handled the Nightmare Moon situation. I know I wasn’t the most social pony, but you couldn’t have helped me just a little bit more than you did. It’s almost like you wanted me to fail. All these tests you through at me. All the things you made me do. I just thought that if you loved me you would have kept me safe and did them yourself.And on that subject, do you hate your subjects? You let all these horrible, bad things happen and do nothing while you pin all your hopes on a college student. Do you really care so little?”
Celestia blinked. Then she blinked again.“That's what this is about?”
Twilight fidgeted and mumbled “well yeah.”
Celestia stared and blinked some more. Then she said “Twilight, I can explain.” Twilight startled Celestia when she snorted. The young alicorn then grumbled “If this is another one of those stupid cryptic speeches I gonna’ be so mad..” Celestia flinched at that one and continued “no, nothing cryptic. A nice honest explanation about why I don't do these things myself. Really, all of this can be summed up in one sentence.
Twilight leaned in eagerly, waiting for this mystical explanation. So Celestia spoke.
“Twilight, I'm old as buck.”
It was then Twilight's turn to have her brain shut down. She replied the way any sane pony would.
“What?”
Celestia smiled as she warmly gazed upon her almost-daughter. She then gave the much needed elaboration. “Twilight, how old do you think I am? No, don’t answer that, let me talk. You see, I’m old. Really old. And when you get to be my age things don’t hold the luster they had before. For tens of thousands of years I have protected Equestria and her ponies. It got to the point that I just got sick of it. So, when you came along, brand new and shining like a star, I decided to do something different. I knew from the moment I saw your cutie mark you would do great things. And you did. So I let you have the spotlight. I stood on the sidelines and cheered as you brought a new era to Equestria. I feel lucky to have witnessed it.”
Twilight sat there frozen for a moment before letting out a relieved sigh. She exclaimed “you don’t hate me. Thank, well, you.” Celestia giggled at that and hugged her former student.
“So, Twilight, want to get some donuts?”
“Yeah, why not.”