*Set in the distant past, but background details are helped by having seen S2E11- Hearth's Warming Eve, S3E13 - Magical Mystery Cure, and S8E07 - Horse Play
“—Now let’s see a pirouette... half-pass… stop before you hit the wall. Piaffe for me. Now halt!”
Lumina’s legs ached from the hoofwork across the studio made out of the castle’s old storeroom. She did her best to suppress the tremble in them while she kept her eyes and head forward in what she hoped was a regal enough angle.
With the support of a cane levitated in her magic, the elderly Princess Platinum slowly stood and ambled over. More than once, Lumina had felt the gold-tipped end correct her stance nearly as much as it helped Platinum’s.
The cane hovered over Lumina’s ribs, paused, twisted, and then followed the line of her fore shoulder. Another pause, and she was sure she was going to get rapped on her fetlock, but the cane flew back to Platinum without touching her at all.
“Full marks,” Platinum intoned then added, “You’ve come a long way since we’ve started.”
Lumina couldn’t believe her ears! She broke out into a grin and turned her head. “Really? You thi—” All at once, the diamond pommel of the cane hovered under her chin.
“Full marks on movement,” Platinum clarified before stepping around to look at Lumina with those critical blue eyes. “You still need to work on your presentation.” She gathered up some of Lumina’s pink mane on the end of a hoof. “Brush your bangs more. They have a habit of falling over your eye.”
“I-I’ll try...”
Platinum rose on her tip-hooves, practically nose to nose now. “Hmph. Such a gangly legged thing you are. You could do with a little more weight on you. Eat more and fill out your figure. Your dressmaker will thank you.”
She turned away and started to walk back to the corner. “In any case, let’s have it one more time from the top—hmm? What is it, girl?”
Lumina had slipped from her stiff posture to fall into a slouch. She stared at her forehooves, self-conscious of their length in a way that she’d never considered before. “Will it ever be enough? I’ve been practicing for months... and now… there’s even more and… and...”
“I thought you’d be happy that I told you to have an extra slice of cake with dinner. Most mares have the opposite trouble,” Platinum replied sharply. When Lumina didn’t move from her slumped position, the matron’s expression and voice softened. “But to answer your question, no. It won’t ever be enough.”
That had Lumina look up. She was already struggling to blink back tears, and Platinum’s answer was hardly comforting. “W-what?”
“That’s the nature of expectations. Ponies when they remember my father talk fondly of the good old times. Nevermind how many times we unicorns had food shortages or terrible weather whenever some argument with pegasi or earth ponies stirred up.”
Platinum shook her head along with her ringlet mane, which had been once as shiny as her name. “But King Bullion is lauded as a hero while his daughter is always playing catch up to his legacy. I’m afraid you won’t get any peace from it until the end, and none at the beginning.”
“How do you get through it all?” Lumina asked quietly. “How can you have everypony watching everything you do?”
“Mmm. What do you know about theater?”
Lumina perked at the mention. “I love the theater! It’s one of my favorite things.”
“Being a noble is being a part of the largest acting troupe on a stage as big as the world.” Platinum smiled, rare for her, but Lumina thought it made years melt away from the princess’ features. “When some cur speaks some vicious rumor or insult, they are talking about Princess Platinum, not Platinum the Pony. Do you see?”
The idea held merit. In a way, Lumina had already thought like she was studying for a role with these etiquette lessons. “I think so, but I’m still not sure if I can just separate things like that.”
Platinum tapped her cane rhythmically against the floor as she considered. “Then perhaps a stage name will help. Your very own dramatis persona. Come up with a name for her. This mare who can do so much for so many.”
The cane finally gave its goading prod, floating around to nudge right at Lumina’s cutie mark. She stumbled away from it, rubbing a hoof on her flank and frowning as she did. Though her rubbing slowed as she mulled over the question. Her eyes were drawn to the window and the sky with its stationary sun.
A name. She needed a name for an important mare. Platinum’s use of the theater term set Lumina's thoughts on how characters always had lofty, old-tongue names.
“Umm… how about… Celestia?” Lumina asked.
Platinum broke into a short laugh. “Ha! Reaching right for the heavens itself, hmm? It fits. Now with this, you put your heart in your hoof and hold it away from you. Nothing anypony can say will ever hurt the true you, only the image you make for them.” She tapped the floor with the cane again. “But remember, it’s not enough to just have the persona. You must be a method actress. I want you to wear it like a fine cloak. Day and night. Here, there, and everywhere. Understand?”
Celestia made a hesitant smile and nodded. “I do.”
“That works better than putting ‘the bearded’ after her name,” remarked Star Swirl.
“Magus!” Celestia cried and fumbled over herself to face her mentor at the doorway. Suddenly all those months of practiced grace left her, and she felt every embarrassing inch of her long legs.
Platinum remained composed, only lifting an eyebrow. “Come to spy on us young fillies?”
Star Swirl matched Platinum’s brow lift with a head tilt that set his hat’s bells jingling. “She was my student first. I wanted to see how she’s coming along. Besides, it’s growing late, and we need her to work her talent before questions start.”
“Oh, I suppose I can give her back to you. She’s learned the most important lesson I could teach her today. Isn’t that right?”
“I won’t forget it,” promised Celestia. After seeing Platinum without that mask ever so briefly, she found a new appreciation for the princess who armored herself in decades of etiquette and authority.
“Go off and perform your miracle then,” Platinum replied and walked to the window. Her forehooves crossed over the pommel of her cane as she sat and watched the sky. “I’ve taken a liking to watching the sunsets lately.”
Like so many times before, Celestia climbed the tower’s staircase onto the castle’s battlement. She always enjoyed the expansive view it gave of the city.
Canterlot was the first city built with all three tribes working together. Great for speed of construction, but it also lent the mood of a frontier town. From her vantage, she thought it resembled a patchwork quilt with some buildings made of wood and thatch with others of brick and masonry. The juxtaposition continued down to the distant streets that started as cobblestones at one end and ended as dirt on the other.
The jingle behind her as Star Swirl reached the top step broke Celestia from her dawdling. She turned her attention skyward towards the sun. Despite having done this task before, she couldn’t help feel the same fear each time. That whatever accident of magical talent and spellcraft that allowed her ability would finally fail her.
Gently, like coaxing an animal, she applied magical pressure to the sun. A figurative stroke. Something that even Celestia knew shouldn’t be enough to move something so massive.
Yet it did.
The sun responded to her ethereal touch and obeyed, starting a descending arc towards the horizon. Usually, Celestia didn’t watch, often too nervous of slipping her mental focus. Today, Platinum’s words stuck with her. If she was going to be worthy of the name Celestia, she should be brave enough to watch.
Canterlot castle stood as the tallest building in the city, and even then they were at the foot of the Canterhorn mountain that dwarfed it. Having control of something that was higher still brought a feeling that the city itself was a toy model and she was moving a lamp across it. Seeing the dramatic shift in the sky itself from noon to evening only boosted that sense of wonder, and it left her swaying on her hooves.
When the sun dipped below the horizon, the moon on the opposite side rose and with it the curtain of the night sky and stars.
“Remarkable. Just remarkable,” Star Swirl said from beside her. “Still no drain at all?”
Celestia shifted slightly, feeling the euphoria fade and replaced with a kind of embarrassment. The old stallion watched her more than the sky during these transitions, and every day and night he couldn’t help but ask the same questions.
“No. No drain…” Celestia bit her lip and hesitated. Her answers never seemed enough for the old wizard. “If anything, it’s even easier now than when I started.” She dropped her eyes away from his and scuffed at the stone brick with a forehoof.
With a tinkling of bells, Star Swirl shook his head. “Don’t look so chastened. It’s a great thing you have been able to do. That it doesn’t hurt you only makes it easier to ask you to keep doing it every day.”
“But I wish I could explain how I do it. I feel like... like…” Celestia waggled a hoof. “Like I’m doing some kind of trick. And saying that I can move the sun like I could light a candle sounds simple and stupid.”
“If magic didn’t have mysteries, the world wouldn’t need wizards, my most special student.” Star Swirl made a wan chuckle. “I admit what happened to you and the sun has given me inspiration for a new spell.” His eyes drifted towards her flanks. “Can I see?”
Celestia tried not to blush under the scrutiny of those eyes as she turned in place. With her magic, she gently peeled the cloth patch of a candle mark covering her actual cutie mark.
Her new cutie mark.
“I’ve gone through a library’s worth of texts, and you’re the only account of a cutie mark changing on an adult pony,” Star Swirl said as he examined the iconic sun on her rear. “The magic involved is a fascinating area of study that I don’t believe has ever been wholly explored before.”
“Is that what your new spell will do? Chaaaa—” Celestia yelped and scampered a step away from Star Swirl’s hoofprodding. She shot him a reproachful look as she smoothed down the cloth patch again. “Change cutie marks?” she finished.
Star Swirl, true to his typical nature, was oblivious to manners when lost in his thoughts. “Perhaps… mayhap… a cutie mark is a curious thing. We take it for granted that our life’s calling is there. Other races don’t even have them. The mystics might have the right of it when they talk of predictions and destiny. But what if a pony could alter their fate?”
Celestia glanced back at her haunch, at the candle that used to be her old cutie mark. It'd been an average mark for a mare and it had never disappointed her. She enjoyed working with light magic, and when the cutie mark changed to the sun, she’d rationalized that the sun was just like a big light… of a sort.
“So, you think that’s what happened to me?” she asked, and thought on the implications. A candle cutie mark promised a life of candlemaking or lampwork. What profession did a sun symbolize, really?
“Hmmm.” Star Swirl stroked a hoof over his beard again. After a weighty amount of time, he finally said, “I don’t know. It was actually something I was hoping you could tell me.”
Celestia stared at him. “What?”
Star Swirl lifted his cloak with a slight jangle of bells. From a saddlebag underneath, he levitated a large book over to Celestia. “While you have been dancing about with the princess, I’ve spent months trying to magically recreate the phenomena. I’m afraid I’ve come to an impasse, but I’d like your thoughts on it. You were the first this ever happened to, so there could be some insight you have.”
“I’ll try, magus.” Celestia weighed the large book in her hooves and sighed inwardly. The one fate she thought she couldn’t escape from was still getting homework.
With the shift to evening hours, most of the inhabitants of Canterlot Castle filtered back to the surrounding town or retired to their chambers. Celestia took the long way to her dorm; she needed the time to craft an excuse.
In the long stretch of hallway, hoofsteps sounded loud on the stone floor. Celestia mused on the lack of carpet when a step lightly clicked before her own forehoof touched the floor.
Startled, she turned and faced the hallway behind her. “H-hello?” she called, but the only answer she got was the quiet echo of her voice.
Was it her imagination? Celestia eyed the hall and the dim torches spaced along the wall. They almost did more to cast shadows than light the hallway itself.
On impulse, she lit her horn, and the torches bloomed in response. All at once, the hallway was magnitudes less foreboding with the stark shadows falling back.
Except for a circle of darkness in the dead center.
Frowning, Celestia flared her magic, and now the torches burned like spotlights. The circle of shadow shrunk underneath the flood of light and wavered on the edges before finally shearing away.
It revealed a pair of angry green eyes over a scrunched muzzle.
“Nocturna!” Celestia exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
In the bright light of the enhanced torches, the unicorn filly looked small and scrawny. Celestia felt silly that her imagination conjured some looming monster when she had a head of height and five years over her sibling.
The feeling evaporated when her ‘little’ sister came at her like a cyan-maned fury.
“What am I doing?! What are you doing?” Nocturna shot back, then winced as she rubbed at her sputtering horn. “You are having secret meetings!”
“You were following me?”
“Because you’ve been lying to me!”
“It wasn’t a lie. I was getting dancing lessons like I said.”
“From Princess Platinum!”
“Well... they’re important dancing lessons.”
“You didn’t do any dancing with the Magus,” Nocturna noted before her anger broke, and worry came into her voice instead. “Lumi, you’re moving the sun? Helping with the ceremony just once risks your magic and doing it twice… y-you’ve been doing it for months? By yourself?”
Celestia sighed and looked away from those imploring eyes. “Yes, and if you were listening in on us, you already know I don’t know how I do it. I just can.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
That question came quieter than any of the rest, and Celestia fidgeted on her hooves. She didn’t need to look back to know the hurt on Nocturna’s face. “I didn’t want you to talk me out of it.”
“What if it ki—” Nocturna bit her tongue at the thought. “—injures you?”
“It doesn’t. The trick with the torches was harder,” Celestia admitted before continuing, “but… even if I only did it ten times, that’s fifty unicorns, Nocturna. Fifty unicorns that didn’t have to gamble with their magic! That number is in the hundreds now, and it grows every day and night. How could I refuse to help if it’s so easy for me?”
Nocturna gritted her teeth, caught for an answer.
“What’s with the dancing?” she asked instead.
Celestia smiled. “They said they’re going to give me a title. Probably ‘Royal Sun Raiser’ or something. I have to learn how to be around aristocrats.” She shrugged. “If it comes with some money, then maybe I can help us a little, too. Better than making candles or casting bit-store cantrips.”
Nocturna inclined her head. “And have you talked with Mother?”
“Ahh... erm… well.” Celestia glanced around the hallway, trying to find a physical escape from the question.
“Lumi.”
“I was going to tell her… eventually. Maybe when we visit this weekend?”
“Eventually?” Nocturna’s eyes were back to glaring again. “Are you waiting for your horn to fall off or… or... for them to crown you Princess Sunshine? Whichever comes first, I wonder!”
Celestia rolled her own eyes. “Me, a princess? Really. Do you have to be so ridiculous?”
“If you don’t tell her, I will.”
“You’d tattle on me? Your sister?”
“Better to tattle on a sister than keep secrets from them,” Nocturna answered before flicking her tail and stalking down the hall.
“Fine! We’ll go together,” Celestia grumbled and hurried after her.
With Canterlot built so quickly by the three tribes, it lent more to passion than civic planning. Buildings cropped up together by function and class, with the stone mansions of the nobility the closest to the castle while the commoners grouped up by the river and road. The markets made a middle ground between rich and poor, where trade and craft ponies could afford homes or have homes-as-shops.
Down one of the smaller alleyways alongside the city’s theater sat a little cottage that leaned against the bigger building.
Nocturna trotted ahead as they approached the front door and knocked on it with a forehoof.
“Maybe she isn’t home,” Celestia said as a minute ticked by with no response. “It’s a work night, isn’t it?”
“Then we wait for her.” Nocturna knocked more pointedly a second time.
Faintly, there was the sound of clattering, and on the second floor a window opened. A white unicorn with her red mane disheveled from sleep leaned out the window and asked, “Who is it?” She puffed up at her bangs to get them out of her eyes and answered herself with a gasp. “Lumina! Nocturna!”
There came another round of muffled thumping when she disappeared from the window, and a moment later the front door opened. Immediately, she had a hoof around them both in a tight hug.
“Hello, Mother,” Nocturna said.
“Hi, Mom,” Celestia chorused.
“You two are home early! Wait, let me get the kettle on,” Inkpot said and turned back inside.
Celestia eyed Nocturna, who’d taken a position behind like a miniature sentry to block off any retreat.
“You know I could probably jump over you,” whispered Celestia.
Nocturna shrugged with a single shoulder and didn’t move.
Sighing, Celestia took five steps forward and promptly face planted on the entryway rug when she tripped over the saddlebags left there.
“Sorry for the mess!” Inkpot called from the kitchen. “I was so tired today that I just left everything at the door. I didn’t think I’d be getting visitors. Lumina, could you get the rest of the lights while I’m making the tea?”
“Sure,” Celestia mumbled into the rug and scattered papers from the saddlebags. She threw Nocturna a glare when her sister leapt over her sprawled body like a hurdle, grinning all the while.
Fortunately, lighting lamps was something Celestia could do at any elevation, and soon the cottage was illuminated fully. The sight of Mother’s messy habit in keeping various knickknacks, theater props, and secondhoof furniture was as familiar as a well-worn hoofshoe. It stood out all the more in contrast after living in the castle’s dorms where everything was neat and orderly.
Celestia stuffed the tumbled scrolls, manuscripts, quills, and stoppered ink bottles back into the saddlebags just as Inkpot herself came in from the kitchen, levitating a tray.
“So what brings you two in the middle of the week? How have your classes been?” Inkpot asked while she set the tray on the table and poured for three cups.
“They’re going good. They told me to eat some cake,” Celestia said with a half-smile.
“Cake? Well, I could help you with that.” Inkpot smiled back.
A long, loud slurp came from Nocturna, and Celestia felt the chill of her sister’s gaze on her neck. “Err… but more seriously, I… umm… they’re going to give me a title. I’ll be working in the royal court soon.”
Inkpot's ears lifted, and she clopped her hooves together. “That’s fantastic news! Oh, honey, I’m so proud.” She drew Celestia in for another hug. “My little Lumina! A lady? Little Lady Lumina.” She laughed. “Isn’t that catchy?”
Nocturna snorted into her teacup and muttered, “Not exactly. They want her to change her name. Being ‘Lumina’ isn’t good enough.”
“The princess didn’t say that! It was just a suggestion,” Celestia protested.
Inkpot tousled Celestia’s mane with a hoof and looked over at Nocturna. “It’s not such a big thing to change your name. Why, it even happened to me!”
When that earned her a surprised look from them both, Inkpot continued, “What? Did you think your grandmother was so on the nose? It was after I got my cutie mark. Nowadays, ponies see the inkpot on my flank and use my nickname more than my real one.”
Nocturna shared a glance with Celestia at this revelation and spoke up, “Mother! We’ve been dishonoring you this entire time?”
“Dishonoring? Oh, my little night of a daughter,” Inkpot punned ruthlessly before adding, “a name tends to grow on a pony, dear. I’m fond of it now. I’ll let you two in on another secret, though.” She raised a hoof beside her muzzle and spoke in a conspirator’s tone. “I’m thinking about changing it again.”
That prompted the obvious question from Celestia and Nocturna both at the same time. “To what?”
Inkpot spun a spoonful of sugar into her tea with her magic and took a moment to savor the aroma, wholly exercising her theatrical sense of drama. “Mmm! You aren’t the only ones who work with nobles. They always want a little mystery in their playwrights. So I’m going to start signing my work as ‘Shakespony’.” She grinned at them and waited.
Celestia and Nocturna shared another glance. This time Celestia was the one to speak up and take the bait. “Why Shakespony?”
“Because—” Inkpot hugged herself with her forehooves and shook hard enough to make her voice warble. “—I just shake the ideas out when I write!” She then pouted at their twin facehoof. “Oh, come now. It’s a good one! Nopony is ever going to guess what it means.”
Nocturna sighed from behind her hoof. “I suppose it’s not as bad as what Lumi came up with.”
“Oh?” Inkpot asked, lifting a brow.
Celestia glared at Nocturna before she sheepishly turned back to their Mother. “I... told them I wanted to use the name Celestia.”
Inkpot blinked and let out a surprised laugh. “Celestia? You mean the winged unicorn character I drop on strings whenever I’ve written myself into a corner? That Celestia?”
Celestia gazed into her own teacup, trying not to let the blush on her cheeks reach her ears. “She was always my favorite because she makes everypony happy.”
“Ponies love heroines who can make a hard life just a little bit easier. She’s my favorite too, my problem-solver mare,” Inkpot agreed and lifted her teacup to her muzzle for another sip. Her eyes, often so full of mirth, looked at Celestia with azure clarity now. “So tell me, my love. What problem was so big that they want to give you a title over?”
“I’ve been raising and lowering the sun.”
Inkpot spat out her tea.
“I still can’t believe she actually baked you the cake,” Nocturna grumbled.
“Mom understands that it’s important. She supports me.” Celestia merrily gathered a big spoonful of what remained of the large wedge. She took her time in loading up the spoon with a wobbly tower of frosting before opening her mouth in an exaggerated ‘aah’.
Nocturna rolled eyes at the display and looked away.
As soon as she did, Celestia floated the cake-laden spoon from her mouth into Nocturna’s and giggled at the surprise on her sister’s face. “Gotcha! But you can have the rest of it if you’d like. It was your idea to talk to her after all.”
Nocturna grunted, but her dour expression softened as she ate.
Whenever the sisters visited home, they had a small tradition of spending time on the rooftop at night. Celestia enjoyed it because with the house built next to the theater, she could sometimes catch the late shows. Nocturna liked it because it gave her a chance to look up at the stars.
With their Mother at home and in bed, there weren’t any current performances going on, so Celestia occupied herself with Star Swirl’s notebook instead. She leaned back against the thatch of the roof and floated the book in front of her while using her lit horn tip for a light.
Eventually, Nocturna finished the cake and settled beside Celestia. “Did the magus make any progress in understanding what happened to you?”
Celestia sighed as she rotated the notebook to read her mentor’s scrawl that took a right-angle turn and went around the edge of the page. “The thaumatic equations are all there and are like our usual spellwork. But the pages about magical theory just go on and on.” She shrugged.
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out, you’ve always done well on the tests."
“Tests usually have answers,” Celestia replied. She soon scrunched her muzzle when a page of Star Swirl’s notebook turned out to be a folded napkin with scribbles on either side.
“There must be one if it happened at all. You have the proof right there,” Nocturna noted with a hoofbump against Celestia’s covered cutie mark. “It must be nice to get an upgrade. I wish I could.”
Celestia squirmed under the press and swatted the offending hoof with her tail. The wistful tone, however, had her look towards Nocturna’s flank where the powder-blue coat darkened with a splash of black. “What do you mean? I like your cutie. It’s unique.”
“It doesn’t have a symbol. Half of the time, ponies think I’m a blank flank.”
“Oh, I don’t know. It fits your name and your talent.” Celestia rocked slightly to brush her hip against Nocturna’s. “Besides, look at what happened to Mom. Stupid ponies will always try to find a way to tease and come up with nicknames.”
For a little while they reclined in companionable silence, with Celestia studying and Nocturna stargazing. Distantly, a trio of late-working pegasi cleared a large sweep of clouds, and the moon took sudden prominence.
Nocturna sat up and nudged Celestia’s shoulder. “Hey, can you control the moon too? It looks like it’s moving.”
Celestia blinked and considered the question. “Yes and no.”
“Yes and no?” Nocturna frowned.
“It’s kinda hard to explain.” Celestia drew a circle in the air with her forehoof. “Try to imagine a giant wheel with the sun on one side and the moon on the other. I can grab it at the sun part and make it turn, but the moon part is only going up because I pushed the sun part down. It keeps going until it needs another push.”
“You sound so knowledgeable! Is this something the magus wrote?”
“No, it’s something you can only figure out if you move the whole thing yourself.” Celestia shut the book and sighed. “I guess that makes me an expert? I’m sure I’m right, though. I’ve read every astronomy book in the library since this started, and nopony ever mentions the moon and sun in the sky at the same time.”
“Are there any other mysteries you’ve discovered? Anything about the stars?” Nocturna asked, eyes big and bright as she looked up to Celestia.
Celestia found herself put on the spot after her bragging. She searched the night sky above, trying to find something, anything. Providence came when she spotted a star moving independently from the rest. She pointed. “Ah ha! Lucky star! Quick, make a wish.”
Nocturna followed her hoof and blinked at the star as it sped past. “What?”
“It’s an old Zebra folklore thing. The Starkatteri tribe say if you make a wish on a star it’ll come true.”
For a quiet moment, they both watched the star as it continued its streak across the sky.
“What did you wish for?” Celestia asked once it had fallen out of sight over the horizon.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to tell.”
“You’re thinking of birthday candles.”
“Well, what did you wish for?”
Celestia giggled. “A pair of wings like Mom’s character. Without the strings.”
“Oh,” Nocturna said, fidgeting.
“Come on, your turn to tell now.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Nocturna said with a small blush. “It’s silly.”
“Sillier than a flying unicorn?” Celestia challenged and put a hoof around her sister’s barrel. “You better tell. Or eeeelse!” She lit her horn and formed her telekinesis into feathers made of light.
“Lumi, no!” Nocturna cried and flailed with both sets of hooves as the feathers assaulted her. “S-stop! Ahhhahhahhhah!”
“To stop, you just have to tell!” Celestia sing-songed before lowering her muzzle threateningly over Nocturna’s middle. “It’s only going to get worse!”
“Hahhaha-ohnnononohaaa!” Nocturna squealed when Celestia blew into her belly. “O-okay! I-hah-will tell! Auntie! Auntie!”
“Well, what is it?”
Nocturna’s muzzle was flushed a dark shade of purple that ran up to her ears and down to her chest. She didn’t quite meet Celestia’s eyes and mumbled her response into the roof's thatch. “I wished… that I would never lose you.”
Celestia had been poised with her magic feathers and lips to give Nocturna a tickling no matter what she said. The sincerity in her voice made Celestia banish the feathers and turn the grip into a strong hug instead.
The words shocked Celestia out of her dozing state and into wheeling at the air with her forehooves. Her chair, which had been perfectly perched on two legs, teetered over with her in it. “I wasn’t sleeping!” she exclaimed from the floor.
Nocturna leaned over Celestia to look at her upside down. “He isn’t here with me. He just arrived with the other fellows in the main hall.”
“Oh. Good,” Celestia replied and relaxed against the carpet.
“Did you not wish to talk to him? We’re running out of wall.”
The sisters shared a room in the castle, and it wasn’t all that different from when they were growing up bunking together at home. Lately, however, Celestia’s dissection of Star Swirl’s spellbook had her penning scroll after scroll of notes. Without Star Swirl on hoof to consult, the pages of notes had creeped out from the corner with the desk to be tacked onto the wall and from there, spread like paper ivy in every direction.
Celestia stared up at one page that somehow made its way to the ceiling. “I’d hoped to have something to show for it when he got back. It’s frustrating, like having the recipe for a cake but missing a few key ingredients.”
Nocturna raised an eyebrow. “That’s an interesting analogy to use.” Her hoof prodded at Celestia’s middle. “At least you’ve made progress on the other thing, eh?”
The bump provoked a fussy whinny out of Celestia, and she sat up on her haunches. “I’m serious. This spell has incredible potential.”
“Is it really that important? Some ponies don’t even follow their mark. Perhaps it would be better not to meddle? Wasn’t once enough?”
Celestia sighed. “It’s not just the cutie marks, it’s something deeper than that.” She gestured at the wall. “This kind of spell is less about changing a pony to fit the world and more like… changing the world to fit a pony.”
“I’m not sure I understand?"
“I used to think that raising the sun set something off, but now I wonder that maybe my cutie mark changed before it happened. With a spell that changes reality you wouldn’t even know what changed. It might not even matter when it was cast either. A future me could have cast it, and now I’m dealing with the results. It makes me a little hopeful because maybe it means I do eventually figure it out, but I’m also a little peeved that I couldn’t send myself a note with the solutio—”
“Lumi...”
Celestia peeled her eyes away from the wall of pinned sheets. “What?”
“Maybe we should go for a walk? To the kitchens for something to eat or oh! The Mighty Helm came with the magus when he returned. We could watch them spar. Wouldn’t that be fun?” Even as the younger sister, Nocturna could keep her expression as guarded as the castle when she talked in especially level tones.
“I’m not crazy,” Celestia said with a scowl.
Nocturna’s gaze made the circuit from the paper-laden desk, the papered wall, and then up to the lone sheet on the ceiling.
“I’m not!” Celestia insisted.
“It still might help to look at something other than walls and scrolls," Nocturna suggested.
Together they traveled to the main hall of Canterlot Castle, and at once they heard the clattering of metal, hooves, and boisterous voices. From the top of the grand hall's staircase, they had a wide view of the three dozen armored earth ponies gathered below.
“There’s so many!” Celestia exclaimed. Unlike the city guard, these soldiers had a rugged northerner look about them with braided manes, bulky limbs, and heavy fetlocks.
Nocturna perched her hooves on the staircase’s railing and looked on with a few excited tail-swishes. “They helped the magus’ party defeat a trio of monsters that rampaged through the land.” She sighed. “A pity to miss such a battle.”
“I’m sure Mom will write a play about it, eventually.”
“Pah! With wooden swords and tin helmets." Nocturna sniffed and looked longingly at the armored soldiers.
Celestia entertained a vision of her sister in armor two sizes too big, helmet over her eyes, and swinging a sword at nearby knees.
Nocturna peered over her shoulder at Celestia’s quiet giggle. “Hmm?”
“Nothing,” Celestia replied and hid her smile with a hoof. “Have you spotted the magus?”
“No, but look over there by that table. Those are some of the ponies he traveled with.”
Celestia followed Nocturna’s pointing hoof to a particular table. Even for a Mighty Helm, the stallion was enormous and towered over a pegasus dressed in legion armor beside him.
“That one looks like a mountain with hooves,” Celestia noted. “Who could they be, I wonder?”
“The large one is Rockhoof and the other Flash Magnus,” Nocturna replied before eye rolling at Celestia’s surprised look. “It’s amazing what one can learn when they are not spending all their time in a paper prison.”
Celestia snorted at that and turned back to watching the table. Over the general din of the crowded hall, she could hear Rockhoof’s throaty laugh as he pounded the table with a hoof at some joke or another.
“He’s quite a jolly one,” Celestia said, amused. “Certainly a striking stallion.”
“Mmmn. If you say. The legionary is better dressed,” Nocturna murmured.
That tone had Celestia look over, and grin with the mischief of elder siblings everywhere. “Well, well, well.”
Nocturna’s straightened and she turned back from her staring that bordered on the voyeuristic. “What?”
“My little sister has a crush!”
“A crush! What are you talking about?”
“Don’t bother denying it. You’re even blushing!”
“Am not!” Nocturna squeaked. “I just like looking at them.”
“And knowing all about them too, hmm? How did you find out their names?” Celestia pressed.
Nocturna crossed her hooves, but her eyes darted to the side. “I... listened. Something you ought to do sometime!”
“Did you do your trick with the shadows? Spy on them in the barracks, maybe?” Celestia grinned when Nocturna turned an even more vibrant shade of purple.
Her sister soon rallied, rendering her victory short-lived.
“Let us speak about the large one you are fawning over!” Nocturna narrowed her eyes, and she uttered a chilling incantation. “I dare you.”
“To do what?” asked Celestia, mirroring that squint.
“Why, to talk to them,” Nocturna replied with a tone as sweet as spun sugar. “Perhaps even ask him to a show.”
“A date. You want me to ask one out on a date."
“I’ll even go with. Since you’re so skilled at talking to stallions, of course. I should learn from my big sister.”
Celestia bit her lip. The battle lines were being drawn. “If I ask him out, you’ll have to ask the other one.”
“If you get a date.”
Celestia flared her nostrils at the smug tone. Pique motivated her to get her down the steps to the hall, but her confidence wavered when the table came into view.
“Still time enough to forfeit,” Nocturna offered.
“Hah! Hardly,” Celestia scoffed. She tried to focus on her training with Platinum. Though that reminded her of the princess’ remark about gangly legs and she nearly stumbled.
Nothing anypony can say will ever hurt the true you, only the image you make for them.
“If they ask you, say my name is Celestia,” Celestia murmured under her breath.
Nocturna’s lip jutted out, and she blew out a ‘pfft’. “I’m never going to call you that. I’m just going to say ‘sister’ or ‘my sister’.”
Celestia pouted, though quickly changed to a sunny smile when Rockhoof caught sight of her approach.
“Why 'ello dere pretty felly!” he happily declared.
Despite the earth pony having the tact of an earthquake, Celestia blushed at the compliment all the same. She drew herself up slightly and tapped the lessons Platinum had drilled into her. She tipped her head, let her mane shade her rosy cheek and put on an affectation. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sir Rockhoof. I’ve heard many things about the adventures of you and the Mighty Helm.”
“Hah ‘Sir’! Am nae a knight, just a fighter wi' a shovel,” Rockhoof replied. “A lassie like yourself that’ll dae better fer the world.”
Sitting beside Rockhoof, Flash Magnus raised a mug and gave her a courteous salute with it. “Thank you for coming down to honor us, my lady.”
Mentally, Celestia had prepared a game plan of the typical starters and small talk to introduce herself and ease her way through the conversation. The bottom of that script seemed to have fallen out with the unexpected familiarity. “Err... sorry, have we met before?”
“Nae, but we hear plenty enough fram old beard 'n bells of his felly 'prentice. Heh, sure did give Stygian a run for his bits. Annae that right?”
On the other side of the table was a male that Celestia hadn’t noticed before. Thin and slight when compared to the larger bodies of soldiers around him. He had a look of somepony who could easily fade into the background.
“It’s good to see some of us can find fame and appreciation,” said Stygian with a look so poisonous that Celestia backed from the table a half step. She fell flat on her flank at his next statement. “Not everypony who studies for years with Star Swirl is named a princess.”
“I... prin-princess?” Celestia managed to whisper out of a throat that was suddenly cinched tight.
Magnus raised his mug again. “Let’s have a cheer. For Princess Celestia!”
Celestia barely heard the chant that followed. The unreality of it all had her looking around for something familiar, but Nocturna was no longer next to her. She spotted her sister halfway up the steps on her way out.
After making some bare bones goodbyes to those at the table, Celestia trotted to catch up with Nocturna. “W-wait!”
Nocturna stood stiffly as Celestia approached, and gave a glower over the shoulder that matched Stygian’s. “Mother would be proud. Never did I know you were so great an actress to set such a thing up.”
Celestia stopped midstep, pinned by the frosty glare. “Nocturna, I had nothing to do with that!”
“Bravo! Another brilliant performance by Princess Celestia,” Nocturna said, and her lip trembled. “Fool I was to think you were studying for all those hours.”
“I never told them any of that! I have no idea what’s even going on!” Celestia cried. “It’s not some kind of joke or prank.”
Nocturna stared back for a long moment before giving a vigorous head shake. She started back down the hall and muttered in a voice that was more to herself than to Celestia. “I hope it is.”
Celestia made ready to follow, but paused when she saw the tension in her sister’s shoulders and step. There was nothing she could say to Nocturna to convince her otherwise.
She needed answers.
The wizard’s quarters were as large as any suite of rooms for a noble. Where an aristocrat would keep fanciful artwork and elaborate furnishings in their residence, Star Swirl’s were more like an unofficial branch of the castle’s library mixed with a tinker’s workshop. Presumably there was also a bed in there, though Celestia had her doubts that the magus actually slept.
When her knock went unanswered, Celestia prodded the door open with a hoof and felt relief at seeing the old wizard at his desk. “Magus! It’s good to see you.” A half dozen questions leapt to her throat, but she couldn’t bring herself to be too disrespectful.
Though manners and etiquette tended to be one-sided in these interactions.
Star Swirl briefly glanced over before continuing his writing. “Ah, my most talented student. Excellent work with keeping the solar schedule while I was away.”
A moment of silence passed, and then another. The quiet was broken only by the slight scratching of quill on paper.
Internally, Celestia screamed. Out loud, she ventured in an excruciatingly patient tone. “I heard of your victory over those monsters.”
That prompted a reaction, though only of Star Swirl getting up from the desk and walking towards a large full-length mirror leaning haphazardly against the bookcase. He floated the book beside him in his white aura, still writing while he looked at his reflection. “We could have been worse off, but hippocampi are mesmers and fortunately do not eat their prey.” He paused, shrugging. “At first, anyway.”
Celestia edged herself closer to stand beside the mirror in the vain hope of keeping Star Swirl’s attention by taking up more of his field of view. “I was talking to some of your traveling companions. They said you… mentioned me.”
“Mm-hmm, what of it?” Star Swirl’s muzzle was back between the book covers.
“They said you called me Celestia. Princess Celestia.”
Star Swirl tugged on his beard with a hoof and considered. His snowy brow knitted together before he spoke, “Hmm. Well, if there is a lesson there for you, it would be never to drink to excess. A wizard’s greatest asset is knowledge, and cider has a way of loosening the tongue when it shouldn’t.”
He nodded and started to look back to his book, but Celestia pulled it out of the air and clapped it shut between her forehooves.
“Magus, why are they calling me that?”
“Eh? It’s your name, isn’t it?”
“My name is Lumina,” replied Celestia, though the sliver of doubt that crept in her voice caused her stomach to do a minor flip. “Nopony knows the stage name yet. But that’s not what I’m asking about! Why are they calling me princess?”
The blank look Star Swirl gave her for the question provoked a fresh worry for her old mentor’s sanity and her own. She idly noticed that the wizard’s beard had gotten a few white streaks since she last saw him.
Finally, Star Swirl blew out a sudden laugh. “Ah! It’s early.” He smiled at her as if that explained it all. “Princess is the title they’re going to give you.”
It was Celestia’s turn to stare with incomprehension before she blurted, “What! How could I? How would I even—”
“You spent enough time with Platinum learning all those details, haven’t you?”
“That was just dancing and knowing how to talk to ponies and… and... how to talk while pretending to know stuff!”
Star Swirl nodded. “That sounds right for a princess.” He looked towards the book in Celestia’s hooves and lit his horn to tug on it with his magic.
Celestia nearly swung the spellbook at his head on reflex, but held onto it instead. “Why me?”
“Platinum would knight you on principle alone for how many unicorns you’ve saved, but it’s also good for United Equestria in general. Perhaps your talent came about from living in the first city where all tribes mingle together.”
Celestia raised her ears at hearing that. “Really?”
Star Swirl shrugged. “Who can say? It makes for a nice thought and a convenient one to tell others.” He waved a hoof towards the nearby window. “This experiment of a society will only last for so long without something to show for it. Ponykind only herds together when there’s a threat or behind a symbol. Those hippocampi attacking was fortunate timing. Announcing a new princess soon after is even better.”
“So, it’s all acting? The title isn’t me like being a princess princess?” Celestia was unsure if she was relieved by the idea or miffed.
“I’ve always been of the opinion that magic is a better force in this world than politics. You're living proof that it will be. An age where instead of being squandered and burnt out, magic talent is given room to grow and spread. Who cares what silly thing they want to tack onto your name? Your magical contributions will last all the longer.”
Star Swirl smiled then, an expression that was as rare on his face as much as it had been on Platinum’s. “Speaking of which, have you made any progress on the spell I gave you before?”
Celestia felt the jolt of nerves at her teacher calling on her for an assignment, and she flustered. “I’m still working on it.”
“Mmm. I have a feeling you’ll figure it out soon enough.” Star Swirl inclined his head towards Celestia’s hooves, and she let go of the spellbook. “When you're done with that, we can work on this one together. I discovered an interesting application of spatial spellcraft during the battle with the hippocampi.”
“Another spell?” Celestia whimpered, foretelling another mountain of paper in her near future. She slumped back and leaned her head against the mirror next to her. A moment later, she did a double take at a glimpse of waving rainbow and golden crown.
“You have only yourself to blame. You’ve given me so much time to work on these theories.” Star Swirl chuckled as he started his way back to the desk. When she didn’t respond, he looked up and blinked. “Something the matter?”
Celestia stared at her reflection in the mirror. An ordinary unicorn filly with an ordinary pink mane stared back. “N-nothing. I just thought...” She shook her head. “Nevermind. I should get back to work on your spell. All this talk of royals is getting to my head.”
As unsure as she was about being elevated far beyond some minor court title, Celestia could at least focus on one aspect. Magic got her into this, and it was something she could put her mind to a lot better than anything else.
Renewed of purpose, she returned to her dorm and sat at the desk. A quill levitated on one side, and a scroll hovered on the other. Her eyes set forward for a fresh crack at the spellbook.
Celestia blinked at the conspicuous book-shaped hole in the surrounding paper mess. She glanced around the top of the table, then under it. Panic made her whinny, and she hoofed through her notes, vainly trying to uncover the book from under them when her eyes fell on the bunk beds.
The empty bunk bed.
“Nocturna!”
After a half hour of hard galloping, Celestia arrived at the front door to her family’s cottage. The windows were dark, and the distant voices of a performance in the theatre next door told her that her mother wouldn’t be home, so she made a detour into the small garden out front.
She was rewarded with a small measure of satisfaction when she saw the flowerpot with the key had already been moved slightly off-kilter.
Moments later, she charged up the steps and would have bucked the door to her old room if it weren’t already open.
Nocturna at the desk yelped at the vision of her sister with mud-stained hooves, a frazzled mane, and wild eyes. “H-how did you—”
“Where else would you go?” Celestia interrupted. Frustration and fatigue from her run showed in her voice and gave it a growling edge. “Where’s the spellbook? Why did you take it?”
Nocturna’s embarrassed expression at being caught red-hoofed was replaced by her own anger at Celestia’s tone. “Why shouldn’t I read it? You used to care about what I thought about things. You never even asked me about it, either!”
Celestia rubbed at her face with her hooves and groaned. “Stop being ridiculous, you know it’s beyond you.”
“Oh, so you think I’m stupid then!”
“No, I just would be spending more time explaining it to you. I don’t have that kind of time. Just like I don’t have the time to be arguing about it now.” Celestia spotted the book on the table and lit her horn to pull it towards her.
Nocturna wheeled and tried catching the book with her hooves before she lit her own horn and stopped it in mid-air. “Of course you don’t have time. You’re too important for that now. Secret meetings with the princess. Secret meetings with the magus. Magic nopony else knows. Crowds of ponies chanting your name. Now a princess! They’re making you a princess, Lumi!”
“I didn’t ask for any of that!” Celestia retorted. The book took on a two-toned appearance as their auras clashed over it. “I don’t want to be a princess!”
“Then say no! Turn it down! Let somepony else do it!”
“I-I can’t! I have to be a princess… the magus said… I… symbols… ponies,” Celestia mumbled as she tried to get out the finer points of her conversation with Star Swirl through clenched teeth. Sweat from around her lit horn matted down her bangs.
“Why do you do what everypony tells you to except for me? Y-you’re going to go live in a big castle and sit with a crown and never talk to mother or me again. We won’t be worth your time.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Celestia grunted and flared her magic to stop the book from drifting towards Nocturna. Fueled by hurt, her sister’s magic felt ironclad. Celestia could only keep the book floating in place.
“You’re already gone!” Nocturna shouted, eyes budding with tears. “They’re taking you away in pieces!”
The teal aura split, and Celestia winced as the twin patches were yanked off her flanks and thrown back at her face.
“You don’t have the same name. You don’t even have your cutie mark anymore!” Nocturna continued, voice turning shrill. “You promised me! But you... you're going to be just like father and leave us forever!”
Celestia staggered, and her horn sputtered from the emotional sucker-punch. “How dare you!” she shrieked back and flared her horn again.
The hard pull had Nocturna skidding forward on all four hooves until she braced and matched Celestia’s effort, muzzle clenched shut as tears ran down her face.
Around them, the room flickered between light and dark with shadow deepening to an inky pitch on the border of painfully bright light. Between them, the spellbook’s cover glowed under tightly knitted magic.
While Nocturna had gone quiet in her concentration, Celestia fought to speak through hers.
“It doesn’t matter if I’m Lumina or Celestia, a princess or a pauper. You’re the only sister I have, and there’s nopony else in the world I could want because…” Celestia trailed away mid-thought. The spellbook in the center of her vision glowed like a star, and inspiration came to her. “...because from both of us together, together we’re friends. Light and shadow, bright and dark, our destinies are one. I could never abandon you.”
Nocturna’s tearstained expression softened under the words. “Lumi—” she managed before the light shifted again.
It was nice. It wasn’t quite like lying back in a pool of water, but her coat tingled with neither coldness nor heat. A kind of neutral that matched her body temperature perfectly. She could just melt into that feeling with her thoughts playing on the edge of awareness. There was no need to move, or even think. She was comfortable. Perfectly balanced. A kind of coziness one could only get during brief times huddled in a blanket on Hearth’s Warming Day.
Celestia smiled.
The thought of Hearth’s Warming brought a memory as clear and as vivid as the day itself. Nocturna, a small foal climbing their tree, star clenched sideways in her mouth like a pirate with a sword. Her Mother’s giggle as she set a mug of hot chocolate in front of Celestia.
So detailed, she could nearly smell the cocoa right down to the marshmallow. Almost as if—
Celestia blinked.
In front of her floated the mug, steaming and as fresh as it had been in her memory. She reached for it with a hoof, but the cup spun away from her, weightless. She switched to her magic to grasp it before it could float too far and brought it back.
“How did this—” she began, then yelped when she looked past the mug at the cloudy void of white surrounding her on all sides. Instinctual fear struck, and she flailed her hooves. She was falling!
After a few panicked moments of her waffling, she took a second look. She hadn’t moved, and neither did the mug. Not falling. But how did she get here?
The details slowly trickled back to her. She found herself viewing it in a vista that opened up before her like an enormous window. She stared at herself, eyes running with tears, her mouth silently moving, followed by a flash that made the room empty and dark, save for a sizzling mark on the wood floor.
Celestia flailed at the air a second time and tumbled backwards from the vision. A new panic rose, and she quickly touched a hoof to her neck. She couldn’t find a pulse! Horror welled up inside of her... until she did feel it.
A moment later, its echo beat in her chest. Relieved, she let out a breath and that brought another realization: she hadn’t been breathing until just now.
Experimentally, she floated the cup of cocoa to her and sipped. The flavor tasted as sweet and as wonderful as she… remembered?
She squinted at the cup. Mom had always made it with marshmallows, but what if it had cream?
A brief laugh came from her when the cocoa now sported a spiral of fluffy cream instead. She drank it happily and savored the taste. So it wasn’t just things in her memory! When she found herself left with the empty cup, she closed her eyes. She didn’t need the cup anymore, and she didn’t wish to be a magical litterbug.
When she opened her eyes, the cup had vanished.
What else could she change? She looked down at the formless nothingness as her hooves dangled. It would help if she could walk somehow.
Musing about it brought it to being. Gravity returned, and her hooves landed flat on invisible air. “I’m probably higher than the highest flying pegasi,” she said, then giggled as the floor changed with her imagination. Now she was on a sparkling road of twinkling stars in a cloudy cosmos.
She bounced along the star-road, testing the artistic spread with her hooves while skipping across assorted lights and nebulae. On impulse, she set off on a gallop and took a running leap that carried her from one ursa to the other. When she landed, she marveled at the distance.
“It’s like fl—” Her breath caught, and she held the thought. Almost too afraid to think about it and find it to be the one thing this magical place couldn’t do. She closed her eyes and wished with all the youthful desire she had in herself. When she peeked an eye open, she let out a whoop of joy at the white-feathered spread from her shoulders.
The next jump had her zooming over the road and cartwheeling in the air. “I can fly! I really can fly! Wait until I tell Nocturna!”
Nocturna.
The thought stunned her, and the world around her came to a stop as she braked and skidded on stardust. Her sister! Was she here?
Celestia looked around, seeing only infinity at every side. She squinted her eyes shut again and thought of her sister. A hint. A direction. Something!
She looked around again and spotted the change. A void in the white distance. She trotted, then took to the air, crossing the gulf with vigorous flaps.
The black mote was a swirling whirlwind made of shadow.
For the first time since awakening, Celestia felt uneasy. There was something malignant about this stationary tornado. In the otherwise pristine white of the realm, it blotted like a dark, ugly stain in the firmament.
Celestia gasped when she saw a silhouette. Peering through the crosswinds, she saw her sister with eyes shut and horn burning with darkness.
“Nocturna!” Celestia called but got no answer.
Why was this happening? Celestia thought on her first experience, it’d been a happy memory and one that summoned her a treat of chocolate. But what if her first thought had been dark and unhappy? In a place where emotions and memories could manifest…
Celestia lit her horn and struck out against the shadows with her magic. At once, the shadows twisted her light and bounced it back at her.
Another glance through the veil of shadow and showed her Nocturna’s face contorted into a terrible grimace. The whipping winds of the maelstrom carried away the tears that ran down her cheeks.
I could never abandon you.
There was really only one thing she could do.
Celestia set her jaw and charged forward into the heart of that tempest. She braced herself for pain, but what she got instead was worse. Wherever the wind slashed at her, her body became numb and her coat darkened. She leaned into the assault, fighting the headwinds until she reached her sobbing sister.
She gathered Nocturna tight in her forehooves and continued on with her wings spread and flapping against the surrounding torment. The wind tore at her feathers with every flap, pulling them out by the roots. Her body was almost entirely senseless, but finally, the shadowy wind parted, and she tumbled out the other side. She landed on the magical star-road in a heap, panting.
“L-Lumi?” Nocturna asked in a voice groggy and sluggish.
“I’m here.”
Nocturna hugged her then, clutching tight around the neck and shoulders.
Celestia smiled tiredly. The numbness had faded, and she could feel the hooves as they squeezed. A look over showed the feathers in her wing regrowing while the wounds disappeared. She added her wings to the hug and put them around Nocturna’s shoulders.
The feathered touch startled Nocturna, and she woke fully. “You have wings!”
“It’s this place. It makes wishes come true!” Celestia couldn’t help the grin crossing her muzzle. “Close your eyes and think about having them.”
Nocturna blinked at her explanation but closed her eyes. A moment later, she gasped as a pair of wings spread out from her own shoulders.
Celestia giggled as Nocturna went through her own round of self-discovery, taking to the sky and pirouetting before zooming in wild aerial spirals.
“I’m flying!” she called from above, voice giddy and full of excitement.
“I know!” Celestia answered and flew up herself to meet her, joining her in the air to touch hooves and spin about with her.
Below the two dancing sisters, the black tornado tore itself apart into tattered wisps. Each laugh above broke apart the darkness below until only a small shadow remained and became dormant.
Nocturna waved her hoof, and a muffin appeared in front of her. She waved again, and it turned into a cookie. Another wave turned it into a glass of milk. Her smile wilted at the edges, and her brow furrowed. “I’m afraid to ask, but are we... dead?”
“I’m not sure,” Celestia admitted.
“Not sure?” Nocturna echoed. “That’s not comforting.”
“We could test it, maybe,” Celestia tapped her chin with a forehoof and mused, “If we can go back then we're not dead. I haven’t tried wishing to leave yet.”
She closed her eyes and pictured the bedroom in their mother’s cottage. She thought about the way the walls looked, how the floors felt. The familiar furniture. Bit by bit, the image in her imagination became more vivid and real—
Suddenly a pair of hooves grabbed at Celestia and broke her concentration with a hard shake.
Celestia blinked at Nocturna’s worried expression. “What’s wrong?”
“Are you okay? You started to fade. Like… becoming transparent fading. I was afraid you’d disappear completely!”
“No, it’s okay. We can go back. It’s almost as easy as waking up, actually.”
“Is that what this place is? A dream?” Nocturna’s ears drooped, and she sighed. “Does that mean we’ll lose our wings when we ‘wake up’?”
“I hope not.” Celestia reached with a wing to tickle along Nocturna’s side. “Cheer up, if all it took was a nap to come here, we wouldn’t have needed the spellbook.”
“The spellbook that blew up. Maybe we should worry more about returning than leaving.” Nocturna squirmed and rustled her own wings. “What if this is our only chance to explore?”
Celestia looked around at the white expanse. “There aren't any places to go on hoof. It’s all the same until we think of a destination.”
“How philosophical.” Nocturna stuck her tongue out. “How about… answers to mysteries? Ah! Could it explain how you could move the sun when nopony else could?”
“It’s worth a try. The magus did say he wrote this spell after watching me.” Celestia considered the right approach. Could she just imagine a book with all the answers in it? She closed her eyes and tried to picture it.
Celestia opened her eyes and saw floating in front of her a book with an ornate golden cover. Secrets of Stellar Motion the book proclaimed in fanciful embroidered script. Reverently, she took the book in her hooves and opened the cover—
—only to find the actual pages blank.
“I guess it wouldn’t be that easy!” Nocturna giggled.
“Let me try again,” Celestia muttered and cinched her eyes shut.
Thoughts of diagrams from the countless books she’d read on astronomy flitted through her mind. None of them were satisfying, she’d always been more a hooves-on mare. Her thoughts drifted instead to the times she played with the orrery in Star Swirl’s classroom.
Beside her, Nocturna shuffled on her hooves. “Umm...”
“Just a few more moments,” Celestia replied with her eyes still closed.
She first learned about star movements through that mechanical curio. Equus was situated in the center, and the smaller satellites of the sun and moon ran on tracks around it. There was even a part with a spring that one could wind up—
Nocturna tugged on her mane. “Sister...”
“I’m almost there!” Celestia answered and shook off the hoof.
In her mind, she reached out pushed the little lever Star Swirl always did when he came back from performing the sun ceremony. Funny how she never thought she’d be the one to set the thing.
Celestia smiled and opened her eyes. “How’s tha-aaaaaaahhhh!”
The milky sky of the realm had grown dark and full of stars. They had a painted-on quality like being on the roof of a planetarium, and Celestia noted the constellations were the same ones she saw when she did her stargazing with Nocturna.
But the biggest thing was the orrery itself. The glittering globe of Equus rose before them like a mountain supported by a giant column of brass. Celestia could see gearwork as large as continents turning in massive arches. An earthquake rumbled briefly, announcing the great ‘tick’ of the mechanism as it turned an enormous wheel at the base.
“I suppose you’re just too literal of a thinker,” Nocturna noted.
Celestia sighed. “If we ever get another spellbook, we should bring mom here. She’d be better at this whole creating-stuff-out-of-thought thing.”
“It’s still pretty. You did do a job that would have taken countless craftponies to make.”
“Or just one very very big one."
For a time, they watched the giant machine at work. The clouds on the gargantuan model of Equus swirled into eddies and hurricanes while water lapped on the shores.
“Have you noticed that it’s not like the one the magus has?” Nocturna mused.
Celestia waved a hoof. “The one he has isn’t accurate. When I imagined this one, I guess I couldn’t help but fix it.”
Nocturna gave her a funny look. “Did you ever tell him that?”
“You think I want to be yelled at?”
“It might have been an important thing to say to the one moving the sun,” Nocturna muttered before blinking when another booming tick had them both suddenly bathed in silvery light. She craned her head back and pointed. “If this is so accurate, what’s with the moon?”
Celestia mirrored the head craning to see the moon on its mechanical track. It was banded by kilometers of heavy chain and a lock put in the center. “I told you before. The moon is locked into its path.”
Nocturna frowned at the moon from a distance. “Why chains, though? They look ugly.”
“You are talking about a metaphor given life in a magical astral dream world,” Celestia replied plainly. “It’s what the math and star charts say, even if there aren’t any ‘actual’ chains.”
“Well, I say it’d look better without them,” Nocturna insisted.
Celestia shrugged and was about to answer when Nocturna spread her wings and took off. “What are you doing?” Celestia called after.
Nocturna winged high and flew up the mechanical arm holding the moon in place. To Celestia’s perspective, it was like watching a fly buzz around a hoofball. With every pass, Nocturna struck the chains with blasts of magic.
At first, it seemed like an impossibility in terms of scale involved, but Celestia reflected in a place like this willpower counted for more than physical size.
When the chains finally broke, they split away in a sudden sliding clash and fell into the darkness where they dissolved into stardust.
Celestia clapped her hooves to applaud the light show, but gasped when Nocturna turned her magic on the moon itself.
Like the finale to one of their mother’s acts, Nocturna raised her hooves and spread her wings wide. The moon itself glimmered with her aura and lifted off the mechanical arm it had been yoked to. It floated off the rail to hang free when the next enormous tock came.
Nocturna returned to Celestia and bounced on her hooves when she landed. “Hah! What great fun! It’s looking so much more beautiful now. I didn’t think I could do it, but then I remembered that all that matters here is to think that you can do something. So I did, and now it’s done! It felt amazing and—err, is everything okay?”
“It’s different now,” Celestia murmured, barely hearing her.
Nocturna’s enthusiasm waned, and she fidgeted. “Did I break it?”
Celestia studied the altered orrery. When Nocturna made the change, Celestia expected to feel like she did when she looked at the orrery in Star Swirl’s classroom, noticing the imperfections and inaccuracies. Looking at the changed system now brought a feeling of sublime clarity that this was better.
Even the mechanism reflected the difference. No longer were there deafening ticks and tocks that moved things by degrees. The planet and sun now moved in a smooth movement that was much more… natural.
Nocturna whinnied at her silence. “Can you fix it?”
Celestia shook her head to clear it from her fugue. “Actually, I think you might have fixed it.” She smiled when she spotted something else. “And if it’s broken… well, you know the saying.” She pointed with a hoof. “It looks like it’s yours now.”
Nocturna followed the pointing hoof to her own flank and gasped at the white crescent in the center of her splotch. “W-what does it mean?”
“My guess is that you're going to need a stage name, too.”
That provoked a flat stare from Nocturna before she made a sheepish smile. “I...uh... I’d already thought of one before. Back when you came up with yours.”
Celestia grinned. “Really? Come on. Tell. I can probably summon every feather in the universe here if you don’t.”
“Luna.”
“You’re going to call yourself ‘moon’ in the old tongue?”
“Like your ‘heavens’ is any better!” Luna protested with a blush.
Celestia pursed her lips and blew out a ‘pfft’. “I’m never going to call you that. I think I’ll just say ‘Sister’ or ‘Little Lulu’.” She punctuated her teasing imitation with a lick along Luna’s nose.
Luna reared back and tackled Celestia to the ground, where they both rolled over one another in a ball of hooves, wings, and happy giggles.
“Where’s your student?”
Star Swirl looked up from his spellbook. He fixed a small frown to cover the surprise at Platinum’s appearance in his personal study. “Isn’t she supposed to be with you at this hour?”
Platinum’s cane tapped the floor in a light two-beat. “Which is why I’m asking you.”
A glance to the window showed daylight behind the curtain, which meant that Celestia had still raised the sun wherever she might be. Star Swirl relaxed in his seat and shrugged. “I would be a legend among legends if I could divine the workings of a mare’s mind. Alas, some mysteries are not meant for stallions.”
That brought out a haughty snort from the matron as she sat opposite from him. “A legendary fool, more like. Could you not 'divine' the outcome of a drinking contest with an earth pony?”
“Some lessons are best learned at the hoof than through the book,” Star Swirl grumbled sagely before raising the spellbook again.
A moment of quiet passed through the study, interrupted only by the steady tap of the cane against the floor and the distant sounds of ponies in the castle courtyard. Star Swirl slouched a little more behind his book to avoid the heat of the glare Platinum drilled into the cover.
Finally, Platinum’s cane swung around to push the book to the table. She leaned over the desk and spoke in constrained, exceedingly smooth tones. “Everypony is asking me about her. The mare who will become the first United Equestrian princess.”
“Are you sore that you will finally have to call yourself Queen?” Star Swirl replied, matching her annoyance with some wizardly gumption. “You have to pass that princess title along sometime.”
Platinum rolled her eyes. “I can accept that I won’t stay young forever. But I need a pony to pass it to. She hasn’t run out on us, has she? I’d wanted to ease her to the idea before you spilled it!”
Star Swirl guffawed. “Is that what you’re worried over? No, Celestia will never run away from duty. She knows what’s at stake. If anything, she’s an overachiever.”
“You sound so certain?”
“I knew it the day her cutie mark changed,” Star Swirl said, grinning. “I’ve seen its like before.” His gaze drifted towards the mirror in the room.
Platinum eyed him and the mirror. She looked as if she was weighing the decision of hitting one or both with her cane. Meanwhile, the din outside became a loud clamour and drew her attention away. “Hmph. What is going on out there?”
Star Swirl stood and reached to pull on the curtain only for it to billow back at him with the sudden booming shout.
“IT IS TIME FOR A NEW DAY IN EQUESTRIA!”
Outside the window was the sight of Celestia at the castle ramparts along with her sister. Both mares stood with wings spread underneath a sky split by sun and moon.
“It... looks like we are going to need another crown,“ Platinum commented with her level voice, though her eye twitched.
“Like I said, she’s an overachiever,” Star Swirl said from the floor.
