Thanks all!Since Time Immemorial
Three gentle raps at the door drew Celestia’s attention. She gently stretched her neck, easing out the stiffness of a long morning working through reports, while her ear flicked in the direction of the muffled voice emanating from behind the thick oaken door. The slight sound was accompanied by the rhythmic ticking of the wall clock that marked it as time for tea.
She smiled faintly, relief flooding her stiff muscles, before glancing down to guide her quill into an open ink pot. Sunlight spilled through the office windows and fell upon the stacks of paper before her. With a small effort of will a thin stack of papers slipped itself off the desk and into a vanilla colored folder, which she tied closed with a piece of string.
“Come in.” She called, returning to her work as Decadent Touch entered with a gold trimmed tray. “Two cups today?” she noted, “Do I have company?”
Decadent Touch deposited the tray lightly on the side table and replied with a quick curtsy. “Princess Twilight Sparkle arrived this morning and is requesting a private audience.”
“Of course.” She replied, “I always have time for my students. Show her in.”
Twilight entered and Decadent slipped out the door behind her with another curtsy. The sharp retort of her hoofsteps was quickly muted as she moved hesitantly onto the plush carpet. Her eyes were, as always, drawn to the ever changing painting and tapestries that adorned the walls of the Solar Suite and only focused on the princess before her when the heavy wood door boomed softly behind her.
“Twilight!” Celestia said. She moved to her pupil and extended a hug, which was enthusiastically returned. “It’s been far too long since you last visited. I hear that your duties as the Princess of Friendship have kept you more than busy this past season.”
“Well, I guess The Map has been more active than usual,” Twilight replied with a quick snuggle against Celestia’s neck, “Rainbow, Pinkie, and I only got back from Trottingham yesterday and Rarity and Applejack already left for Ponduck so Spike had the run of the castle for a little while.” She broke off the hug and the two of them moved to a small table where the tea had been set out. “Not that I don’t trust him, he’s grown up a lot since we first moved in, it’s just that- sometimes I think he forgets how long his tail’s gotten.”
Celestia chuckled slightly and sipped at her cup. “It has been some time since I last saw your assistant. Has he gotten his wings back under control?”
Twilight giggled in response. “He’s been trying, but so far all he’s managed to do is knock over a couple of lamps and a bookcase.”
Celestia joined in with her student’s merriment and extended a wing to encircle the younger alicorn again, pulling her into a tight embrace for a moment. “It is good to see you again Twilight, but as much as I would like to believe otherwise I don’t think you came to Canterlot unannounced for a social visit.”
Twilight grinned nervously and rubbed the back of her neck. “Heh heh, yeah. I guess it is a little unusual.”
“Especially now, with Ponyville hosting the next Summer Sun Celebration. What was it you felt was too important to put in our regular letters?”
Twilight looked down at her teacup for a few moments before answering. “It’s probably nothing. I know how I get worked up over irrelevant things.”
“Twilight. If it worries you enough to make the trip on such short notice, then the least I can do is consider it.”
“Well,” she began slowly, “I was just wondering if, when I became an Alicorn, um, did the spell work right? Not that I’m complaining or anything!” she quickly added, looking up at Celestia. “I like my duties and the castle is great with a huge library and there’s always something to keep me busy around town and the Cutie Map besides, I mean just last week Fluttershy asked me to-”
Celestia held up a hoof to cut off her student’s rambling. “Twilight. What’s bothering you?”
Twilight’s eyes returned to her teacup and she swirled it in her lavender magic while she spoke. “Well,” she said, absentmindedly tugging at her mane, “this morning, when I was brushing myself, I found a grey hair, and I wondered if something had gone wrong. Did it?” she asked, peering up from under her bangs.
Celestia’s usual smile, full of easy grace and compassion, grew strained at Twilight’s question. It thinned, like a piano wire that had been pulled close to breaking and then struck by the inevitable progression of the music. She let out a heavy sigh. Her entire being seemed to lose its radiance as she stood, and made her way to the open balcony.
“P-Princess?” Twilight stuttered, her wide eyes taking in the sudden shift in Celestia demeanor. “It’s okay if you don’t want to answer. It was a stupid question anyway. Heh heh. I’ll just, um, see myself out the door then. S-sorry to bother you.”
Celestia’s reply froze Twilight in her tracks. “You’re going to die.”
…
…
“WHAT?!”
Celestia spun around and rolled her eyes. “Not right now,” she said. A small mischievous grin twisted her lips into a smile, but it was one that was uneven, and fragile. “I would have thought that you of all ponies, Twilight Sparkle, would be familiar with the concept of aging.”
Celestia heaved another sigh and regarded her student with a sad and pitying stare. She placed a hoof on the stunned mare's shoulder before continuing. “You see Twilight, as time passes ponies ‘grow older’. Sometimes their manes turn gray or white and they eventually slow down to the point that-”
“I know what getting old means!” Twilight yelled indignantly. “I can name at least six friendship reports where I mentioned Granny Smith who, by the way, is the oldest mare in town. Fluttershy held a funeral for Harry Hamster just last week, and Rainbow keeps talking about- wait a minute. That’s not funny.”
Celestia, for her part, was attempting to hide a smirk behind a raised teacup. “It’s at least a little funny.”
Twilight glowered at the other princess. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
“I did answer your question. You’re getting older. The transformation was flawless, it’s just that Alicorns aren’t immortal.”
“But-” Twilight said, screwing up her face in confusion.
“Think about it, Twilight. If alicorns never aged then how would young Flurry Heart have grown into the wonderful- if sometimes willful- foal that she is? Even Cadence is starting to notice it, although her Earth Pony magic will keep it from showing for some time yet.”
“Oh,” Twilight said, “I guess that makes sense?” Her eyebrows knitted together and she lapsed into a contemplative silence. The teacup was again swirling absentmindedly in her magical grasp, but this time with the addition of a biscuit that she was nibbling on. An occasionally enthusiastic sway of the cup would send a stray drop surging out of the vessel, only to be caught in the telekinetic field and slide back.
Celestia refilled her own cup and left her student to her thoughts, or as much as she could in the small chamber. Stepping around the table she perused the gallery of hangings that adorned the walls of her room. They were all specimens from her private collection that were occasionally rotated through by the castle staff when she wasn’t looking. Each was beautiful in it’s own way; a floor length tapestry of the celestial cycle, a feather collage of sharp peaks adorned with stone and bits pottery, a crayon drawing of an alicorn beside a tiny unicorn.
At length she stopped beside an ornately framed oil painting of three goats raising a flag atop a rocky crag. Surrounding them were weapons and armor strewn amongst rocks and pale, twisted forms. A rueful smile touched her lips as her hoof traced the elaborate metalwork frame embossed with scrolls and letters foreign to Equestria. Of the three figures depicted only one went without a helmet. His grey muzzle stared firmly into the distance and a neatly trimmed shock of white hair gripped firmly to his chin.
“I guess... I’m a little disappointed,” Twilight said, pulling Celestia from her own musings, “and relieved? I mean I had always thought I would live forever, like you, but it was a little bit scary at the same time. What would I do if all my friends got old and I didn’t? Would I go crazy without them or would I find a way to make them all immortal too? And If I made my friends immortal could I let anypony else go?” Twilight’s ears flattened against her head as she spoke,” I’m not sure I could, even if it was wrong.
“So it might be better this way. I get to stay with my friends for a little while and we get to find out what life’s like. I admit it would have been interesting to study the magic of friendship for a few hundred years, and I would have had you at least.”
“I’m glad you can see it that way,” Celestia said, returning to her seat, “Cadance became somewhat more flustered when she learned she would have to deal with grey hairs and wrinkles like everypony else.”
Twilight giggled. “I can imagine; she can be almost as dainty as Rarity sometimes. Still, I can’t help wondering what The Immortal Princess Twilight would be like.”
“It wouldn’t have suited you. As good of a pony as you are I could never see you becoming a permanent fixture of this world.”
Twilight frowned at that, her ears laying down as she looked up at her teacher. “You make it sound like I’m not good enough to achieve it.”
Celestia sighed and stared out towards the balcony. As she spoke her eyes lost their focus and grew misty. “If it were something to achieve I’m sure you would rank first among alicorns, but our eternal life is less of a gift and more of a sentence.
“Most ponies see how long I have ruled and see the dream of immortality, but I did not speak carelessly when I called it permanent. Immortals do not age, we do not sicken, and we do not die. Ever. Tell me, what do you remember of the events of your brother’s wedding once the queen revealed herself?”
Twilight raised an eyebrow at the sudden shift in topic but she answered the question anyway. It had been many years since the other princess had attempted to guide her towards an answer, but the tone of voice she had always used during Twilight’s education was unmistakable. “You stood up to her. You cast a spell but she had absorbed too much of my brother’s love and she overpowered you. Then you told us to get the elements and we ran out.”
Celestia beamed at her student. “An impeccable memory, as always. Do you remember what condition I was in?”
Twilight’s face screwed up in concentration as she attempted to recall the moment, her hoof rubbing against her chin. “Well, I remember you seemed pretty hurt. Your eyes weren’t focusing well and you were slurring your words. I wanted to help, but you told us to get the Elements; and Chrysalis was coming after us.”
“You did the best you could. It was a dire situation and there was nothing you could have done in any case. For all of your magical talent you’ve never had any luck with the healing arts. What about my horn?”
Twilight squirmed a bit at the jibe but pushed past it. It was true after all: despite her knowledge of medical thaumatology, she had never been able to so much as get a scrape to scab. “I think it was discolored. Blackish. Like that time in the library when I miscast Literary Lattice’s Quick Study spell.”
“And what happened when you miscast that spell?”
“Well, I was casting it on myself instead of another object, so instead of fizzling out like other spells it backfired and reversed the direction of the magic inside my horn. It gave me a terrible headache and you wouldn’t let me use magic for a week!”
“Very good. Now, do you remember what condition I was in after Chrysalis had been expelled by Cadence and your brother?”
“You presided over the ceremony, then you attended the afterparty, and…” Twilight tapped her head for a few moments and then slumped over the table. “I don’t remember. With all that was going on I guess I forgot. You said you were okay but...”
“Let’s take a trip down memory lane then, shall we?” Celestia’s horn lit up and a thick white tome with silver trim floated off a tall bookshelf in the corner of the room. As it crossed the room it opened before touching down in front of her, where she began quickly flipping through the pages.
Inside it was packed tightly with pages and pages of pictures. Twilight saw one of her in her graduating year at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns followed by Blueblood at the head of a long table wearing a party hat. She jumped past another three pages before stopping at one that devoted an entire half page spread to Cadence’s wedding.
“Here we are.” Celestia said, pointing at a particular photo. “Now, tell me what you see.”
The picture in question featured the bride and groom, surrounded by Twilight and her friends, with Celestia and Luna standing behind them all. Twilight found herself cringing fondly as she looked at the dresses and remembered the events preceding the second attempt at the ceremony.
Cadance’s borrowed dress hadn’t fit her quite right, even after the last minute adjustments by Rarity, and the dresses that she and her friends were wearing all had faint hoofprints on them from where they had been trampled on while they had been making their mad dash for the Elements. Only Shining Armor’s suit looked pristine and that was only because he hadn’t seen any action while under the effects of the Queen’s spell. Celestia and Luna were of course their normal immaculate selves, standing proudly behind the group.
“Wait a minute...” Twilight gasped and pointed at the picture. “Your horn! It’s white! But- when my spell backfired the scorch marks took weeks to grow out! Even with horn bleach and coloring.”
Celestia’s eyes sparkled as she nodded her approval. “Exactly. And you should remember that Miss. Lattice’s spell had a very low power input. The spell that Queen Chrysalis used was strong enough to overwhelm one of my most powerful spells. By the time it reached me she was putting in more than enough energy to cook my brain in my skull.”
Twilight’s hoof flew to her mouth and her eyes went wide in horror. “But you were alright. You were hurt but-”
“No, Twilight, I was very dead. But I am permanent, and that particular incident is far from the worst thing that has happened to me.
“What do you mean?”
Celestia turned away and rubbed one of her legs while her wings clasped themselves firmly against her body. “Discord wasn’t always so playful in his antics,” she said quietly, “his methods were once much more deadly, but after ‘playing’ with Luna and I for a few years it seems that he grew bored. ‘What’s the point of killing you if you don’t stay that way?’ Of course, he knew what was happening. He’s subject to the same rules we are.”
“You mean he’s, er, permanent too?”
“Yes. But he wasn’t always. He was once the goat in that painting,” she said, gesturing to the canvas she had been inspecting earlier. “He was the chief strategist of their army, winning battle after battle against overwhelming odds- hundreds of years before the founding of Equestria.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. One day he stopped appearing at battlefields and within a year the kingdom had descended into a firestorm of chaos. I couldn’t have guessed at the cause until he appeared in Equestria as he is now.
“And he’s not the only one. Tirek, Kaz, Durga. Sombra has been particularly punctual about his returns- if increasingly difficult to deal with. For a time I feared that Starlight Glimmer had been added to our company, but it seems you have rescued her from that particular fate.”
“Okay,” Twilight said, her stare boring a hole through the biscuit in front of her, “so you can’t die -- ever, but why do you make it sound like a bad thing? Hasn’t knowing you’re going to be around for another thousand years been really useful while ruling a country?”
“Of course it would seem that way, and indeed it would be if life bore any relation to fantasy, but fate never acts without a purpose. All the members of our pantheon that I have met have been granted permanence seemingly only out of spite.”
Celestia’s head dropped to rest upon her forelegs and the hint of venom that had crept into her words seemed to sink into the floor with the rest of her body. “When I knew King Sombra his only wish was to protect his kingdom. Now that same lust for power only destroys his home and still he is beaten down time and again. Queen Chrysalis has born many hives, and though they are strong enough to survive for a time, they have all either starved or been hunted to extinction. Tirek’s howls of hunger echo up from Tartarus daily, and Discord seems to remain sane only long enough to realize what he’s losing.”
“That’s horrible!” Twilight cried, recoiling, “Who would do something like that?”
“I would.” Celestia said, giving the other mare a wan smile.
“Princess! I didn’t mean--”
“I know. But the blame for their suffering is in part mine.”
“But if you didn’t do anything then hundreds of ponies would have suffered.”
“Necessity does not make an act any less evil. I knew what I did was for the good of my ponies, and I knew it would cause suffering for others. I may have been put in a position to make a choice, but it was my choice to make. I accept the price for my sins and I will pay for them as they come.”
“But you shouldn’t have to. Whoever did this should be held responsible. Why would they make creatures permanent if they’re just going to make them suffer forever?”
“I have found vague references to a ‘sin’ being the cause, some act that has drawn the ire of whatever doles out cosmic punishments, but nothing as to who or what is the cause.”
“Then, maybe I can-”
“Please, Twilight,” Celestia said, raising a weary hoof to forestall her apprentice, “I’ve searched for centuries, trying to learn anything I could about the force that keeps me here, and I’ve yet to find anything. I know you want to help, but please, don’t waste the time you have here. This, here and now, is more precious to me than the eons I spent wandering the land.”
“Princess, I-” Twilight stuttered, hiding a blush behind her bangs, “it means a lot to hear you say that.”
The two sat quietly for a moment. Sipping their tea in silence while Twilight’s gaze drifted to the balcony.
The warm afternoon air drifted lazily in through the open doors. A robin fluttered up to the balcony, chirped once, and disappeared out of sight.
Celestia’s lips curled upwards slightly as she watched Twilight. The other mare was more relaxed than she had been when she came in. Gone was the fidgeting and gently frazzled mane. Gone were the lines of tension on the bridge of her nose. Even her stance had opened up as she munched contentedly on a biscuit. The scene was nothing if not reminiscent of the crayon drawing on the wall, albeit with less scribbles. With a slight sigh, Celestia took one last sip from her tea and placed it on the table.
Outside, the sun tocked lower in the sky.
Twilight choked. Tea and biscuit flew violently from her mouth as she pounded on her chest with a hoof, trying to clear the sudden obstruction. When she could again draw breath she looked up at the wall clock and gasped. “It’s that late already?! The School’s open! I have classes! I- I gotta go!”
Twilight crammed the remains of the biscuit in her mouth as she dashed for the door, stumbling in her haste. A magenta hue enveloped the latch, but the younger princess slowed, and hesitated in pulling it open.
“Celestia?” Twilight asked, turning back one last time, “What was your, um, ‘sin’?”
Celestia winced, but answered anyway. “I kicked a puppy.”
Twilight’s brows furrowed. “Princess...”
“Please, Twilight,” the older mare said, her strained smile returning, “Some things are better lost to history.”