Out with the old...
The scene: Celestia and Luna’s castle, now under new mare-agement.
The place: Canterlot, the happiest place on Equestria. Copyright pending.
The sitch: Twilight is saying ‘goodbye’ to the former occupants on their last day there, and taking rather too long about it. By the time she’s finished saying farewell, it’ll probably be time for her to retire as well…
“So, are all your saddlebags packed, Celestia? Do you have enough cake for the journey there? Are you positive you don’t want to raise the sun one last dawn? For old times sake...?”
“Relax, Twilight Sparkle. I have triple-checked all luggage, with the same veracity as you do with one of your friendship speeches before delivering it. They’re going to hold an official welcoming party for us at Silver Shoals, which I’m sure will have more than enough sugary treats to savour. And as for the sun…”
Even though Luna was never as close to Twilight as Celestia was, she felt she had to chime in at this point to make her point clear.
“Do you have any idea how many times me and my sister had to wake up whilst still half-asleep, to make sure other ponies got their daily dose of light and darkness? Too much, is the answer to that. Quite frankly, we’ll be glad to see the back of the moon, sun... in fact the entire solar system. I might even be able to get a good night’s rest for a change.” yawn
“Even though Luna was a little… blunt in her assessment there, I do have to concur that repeating the same routine even once more holds no appeal to either of us.” Celestia informed her former student that her mind was made up. “That is your task now, along with all the pointless meetings I used to attend and the annoying ambassadors I had to endure. Basically, you’ll be doing all the work of two ponies by yourself. It’s not all bad news though…”
“It isn’t?” Twilight raised an eyebrow, hearing nothing but relentless negativity right now.
“Yes, you get to have my old bedroom! You know, in addition to my sister’s.” Luna completed Celestia’s sentence, beaming as if she’d relayed some special announcement. “Just think: you can have a sleepover whenever you want now! Also, I’ve never tried this ‘build a fort’ craze I’ve heard so much about in the dreams of fillies and colts, but it’s meant to be fun. Maybe you could…”
“Actually, my old castle had many other rooms I could let guests stay overnight in, even if none of them were quite as grand as your chamber.” Twilight huffed a little, clearly unimpressed. “Regarding that, my new special advisor Spike has already laid dibs on it, as the perfect place to house his ever-growing comic collection. He says all it needs is a lick of paint, and it'll be good to go.”
“W-Wha… paint?!” Luna’s impatience to leave quickly turned to visible outrage. “You mean to tell me, he’d defile the dark sanctuary where I used to repose, rip out the heart of my bleak haven, tear asunder the centre of my private abyss…”
“Pretty much, yeah.” Twilight nonchalantly shrugged her shoulders, clearly underestimating Luna’s connection to her former room. “He says it’s ‘too depressing’, or something: I don’t know. He wants me to help him pick out a nice lighter hue tomorrow. I think he mentioned something about sky blue, with white fluffy clouds added later, you know how he loves to fly since getting his new wings… hey, is anything the matter?”
It couldn’t have escaped even Twilight’s attention that an apoplectic Luna was about to turn the air ‘blue’ herself, while the only ‘white fluffy clouds’ would soon be the plumes of steam coming out of her ears.
Luckily, like all good sisters should, Celestia reacted quickly to shove her hoof in her sibling’s mouth. Not too hard, but just enough for the only coherent noise to emerge from within to be a muffled snarl.
“Relax, Luna. Do you really want the paparazzos lurking outside to hear you use profane language, and put something else on their front covers tomorrow other than ‘Royal Sisters Final Day In Charge Ends In Triumph’? Besides, we only have another week to wait until we can speak to our publisher. Until then, we have to keep our emotions in check in case anything leaks. Wouldn’t want to damage those advance copy sales now, would we? So calm down, and sit down please.”
“H-Hang on. Did I just hear you right?” Now it was Twilight’s turn to question what she’d just heard. “You mean to tell me, you’re releasing a book?”
“I think that’s what I implied. Just think, Twilight Sparkle: now we’re free of the shackles of power, we have the right... neigh, the duty to tell the world our story!” Celestia’s eyes turned funny for a split second, like her pupils had suddenly morphed into bits. “Holding power for so many years isn’t just a bed of roses, you know. There’s been lies, corruption, bloodshed…”
“B-B-Bloodshed?!” Twilight stepped back in shock at this unexpected revelation. “Y-You never told me…”
“Well, maybe Luna just spilt the ketchup one time while eating her Hayburger fries. Who cares? It’s the job of every great author to embellish the truth a little.”
“I see.” Twilight could finally breathe again. “You know, I’m beginning to think this book isn’t such a good idea. Don’t you remember the trouble me and my friends got into, when we published our Friendship Journal?”
“Oh, we’re not concerned about that!” Luna finally seemed to have settled down, and deftly escaped her sister’s hoof to rejoin the conversation. “Most of the content will be before most of the readers were even born, so no need for fact checkers! You can’t protest things you can’t disprove! For my part, I can’t wait to tell everypony about my exciting adventures on the moon. Day 1192: Got up. Counted the stars. Again. Found a new crater filled with golf balls. Sighed a lot. Went back to sleep…”
“Hmm. I don’t mean to be rude Luna, but I think that particular chapter needs a bit of work. Like, a ton. Anyway, if we’re going to catch the train to Silver Shoals, we should be leaving round about... now.” Celestia finally had enough mindless chit-chat with their successor, and spread her wings ready to take off.
“Remind me again dear sister… why exactly are we taking the Friendship Express, when we could easily fly all the way there on our own?”
“It’s called good PR, Luna! We have to at least give the pretence that we’re ‘down to earth’ on our final official journey together as joint rulers. Plus, we ride for free: and they promised us an entire carriage, just for ourselves…!”
“Well, okay then. But I get the top bunk.” Luna sounded far from enthusiastic about the idea, but was eventually won over.
“We’ll see about that.” Celestia candidly winked to Twilight on the side, before joining her sister on the edge of the balcony. “Well, this is goodbye for now, Twilight Sparkle. A couple more tips before we go. Always sit up straight on the throne…”
“Embrace your nightmares.” Luna added in a booming voice.
“At official occasions, hold your teacup delicately with one hoofsie…”
“Give into your dark side.”
“Laundry day is every Tuesday. Don’t be late!”
“Surrender to the endless void of reality.”
“Oh, and don’t worry about being so short.” The siblings finally spoke as one. “You’ll soon ‘grow into’ the role.
Already overloaded with instructions, it took a few seconds for this last one to register with a discombobulated Twilight. “Short? Why, compared to the rest of the girls, I’m considered to be quite the beanpole! Whatever could you be…”
“Oh, you’ll see!” Celestia grinned at a smirking Luna knowingly, before turning back to address her former student. “Just as a little going away present, we’ve left an artist’s impression of what you can look forward to, a few years from now.”
“We even did Spike too, because we knew how much it’d mean to him.” Luna continued, as if the pair had done her a great service. “You’ll find the diagram in Celesti… I mean, your bedroom. And you better tell your dragon friend to take care of mine! All that effort to transform it into a brooder’s paradise, all for n-nothing…”
“It’s okay darling sister, dry your tears away! We’ll make your next room twice as black as before and at least ten times as gloomy! You’ll never have another sappy thought ever again! Now, how does that sound?”
Sniff. “Y-You promise?”
“Sure I do! In fact, we’ll get started the second we arrive! Farewell, Twilight. Next time our paths cross, you’ll probably be the one looking down on us!” Celestia added cryptically, before letting the winds take her far away.
“I still don’t have a clue what…” Twilight was more confused than ever, but it was already too late. Celestia and Luna were already a fair distance off, so all questions would have to be answered by the ‘gift’ itself.
“I better go get Spike then. Hope he hasn’t started redecorating without me: I am not running him a bath this early into my reign! Well… I suppose it isn’t that much of an imposition. But he can scrub his own back. Those are my final terms!”
………………………..
“Wow! My future self looks really great!”
“To be that monstrosity, is this truly my fate?”
“Check out that chiselled chin!”
“Why are my legs so long and thin?”
“With those muscles, I can lift things with ease!”
“Why is my mane blowing, when there’s no breeze?”
“After seeing this, I’ve no worries at all!”
“Why do I have to be so incredibly tall?”
"Is that an amulet I get to keep?"
"I won't fit in my bed! How will I sleep?"
Look at me! So big and strong!
“Look at me! This is wrong, wrong, wrong!”
It was safe to say, there was a noticeable disparity between Spike and Twilight’s reactions to how their grown-up selves appeared on the royal sisters’ ‘magic’ paper.
Spike couldn’t wait to try out his new ‘buff’ self! He was already making plans to claw-wrestle Garble, bounce his pecs with Ember, deprive the Diamond Dogs of as many gems as he could carry…
Twilight, on the other hoof…
“I was expecting a bit of a growth spurt, but this is ridiculous! Not to mention, biologically impossible!” Twilight blustered, as if trying to make sense of it all. “They must’ve made some kind of error. Yes, that’s it! Maybe I can set up a test lab somewhere deep underground, prepare a few experiments, about a thousand or so should suffice…”
“I don’t know, Twi. If the two most powerful alicorns in the land, present company excepted, say we’re gonna look like this one day soon, then I’m inclined to believe them.” Spike said almost as much in hope as expectation. “Now, check out these killer biceps! I think I can already see glimpses of my future macho self! Am I right, or amIright? Right?!”
“Spike, I really don’t have time to admire your body right now. This is a complete disaster! An unparalleled catastrophe! And what will Rarity say when I tell her I’ve had to throw out all the old dresses she made for me? What will my other friends think? W-Will they ever treat me the same way again, when I look like this?” Twilight was definitely beginning to start ‘Twilighting’. Hence the origin of the expression.
“Listen, Twi. If the other girls were just fine with you sprouting wings, a longer horn and growing a few inches as an alicorn, what makes you think they’ll feel any different about you after… puberty?” It was a bit of an awkward phrase, but Spike couldn’t think of any better way of describing it. “I-I mean, as long as you’re a good ruler, and how could you not be when you have me along to guide you, then what else matters?”
“At least Luna and Celestia, as far as I know, were born into this form! Me? I was a humble unicorn librarian, who later became an alicorn princess, and now I’m as good as queen! Each time, getting bigger, more powerful, with an ever-changing psychique! I’d be surprised if I didn’t get whiplash at the speed of my evolution, but this latest transformation really takes the cake! D-Do you think I’m really cut out for…” Twilight’s voice trailed off there. With the rapid pace of change in her life and so much pressure piling on her soon-to-be widened shoulders, she seemed close to tears.
“T-Twilight…” If there was ever a time for Spike to stop flexing his imaginary muscles and comfort his best friend, it was now. “Let me ask you a question: Why do you think Celestia made you her student in the first place?”
“B-Because, she thought I was kinda smart?”
“Well, yeah. But I also think she believed in you, and knew that aside from your magical abilities you could mature into a great pony one day. A mare not only capable of running a library, but also able to become a princess and later, take on the role of running an entire nation.”
“Y-You believe, she had this all planned out from the beginning?”
“Who knows. I’m just glad she did what she did, or we’d never have met! But aside from that, I think the amount of friendship problems you’ve solved, all the different creatures you’ve helped and the many times you’ve saved the world speak for themselves. So, after taking everything into consideration, do you think Celestia was wrong to place such high hopes on you?”
“W-Well, without wanting to blow my own yovidaphone, I suppose she didn’t.”
“In that case, what have you got to worry about? If she’s been so right in everything she’s done, who are you to doubt her if she thinks everything’s going to be fine? It doesn’t matter what you look like on the surface, just as long as you’re ‘Twilight’: the somewhat neurotic bookish princess who always seems to save the day, and gives out the best advice and cuddles…”
“...And she’s about to give one right about now!” Her fears completely lifted by Spike’s inspiring pep talk, the alicorn grabbed a blushing Spike and clutched him close to her chest, her feathers providing a softer layer to her lavender coat.
“Spike?”
“Mmm?”
“When did you get so wise beyond your years?”
“When you picked me as your advisor, I decided I had to raise my game.”
“Your… what?”
“Haven’t you noticed? For the last couple of months, I’ve been reading self-help books instead of comics. A huge sacrifice, but one I was willing to make.”
“I wondered where those had gone. Still, while I think it’s great you’re showing such initiative, you shouldn’t grow up too fast. Enjoy what’s left of your youth, because you’ll miss it when it’s gone…”
“Yep, I read that chapter too. Don’t worry, I’ll be straight back to the Power Ponies and Mane-iac as soon as I feel I’ve got enough knowledge to make me worthy of sitting alongside your throne. Now though, I must take my leave.”
“Where are you going? To study more motivational text?”
“No, to get a hammer and some nails. This jumbo-size vanity mirror I’m about to put up in my bedroom ain’t gonna hang itself, is it? And you're not big enough yet to help me, ssssoooo...”