Dare to Play
“...and once Gilded Chisel sent the permit request to me I had to double-take when I saw that he wanted to build the factory right next to Golden Harvest’s carrot orchard. A tar factory? Next to the second largest agricultural exporter of the Ponyville municipal district?! And what baffled me more was his rebuttal of how he saw no wrong with the runoff from the groundbreaking process being funneled through the outer edges of Ms. Harvest’s property. So that’s when I decided to consult with Lumina Perfuma about the by-laws of...”
Her head nodding along with the seemingly endless jargon about the hitherto’s and why-for’s of local construction ordnance, Princess Celestia ensured she was paying complete attention to her beloved student sitting across the shaded patch underneath the tree just on the outskirts of Ponyville.
Or at least, she made it seem like she was. Truth be told she’d long tired of such official business being the main source of conversations in her visits with Twilight Sparkle. She adored the younger alicorn and cherished every moment they could spend together, but all too often she still treated her like a...well, a princess.
Don’t get her wrong, the alabaster mare was quite proud of her status as defender of the realm and matronly ruler of everypony in her domain. She’d carried her role with nothing but the utmost dignity and grace. Forever devoted and eternally steadfast.
But that was the problem, wasn’t it?
She knew her duty well, and held nothing but respect for it. This land has always seen her as Celestia the royal. Celestia the just. Celestia, master of the land and sky. Celestia, bringer or the sun and dispeller of all things wicked and dark. All were one and the same. But in moments of growing frequency, it seemed more like these were pillars towering over her. At some point, Celestia the pony seemed to have fallen off and been trampled by all these regal ponies having taken her place. Where now was that jubilant filly who embraced the world with a warmth and curiosity unrivaled?
That little pony was once born to a pair of bakers, loving and kind. They had little in wealth but all they would ever need in their hearts. Not too long after then Celestia was blessed with her most precious charge: a midnight filly named Luna. The two were such a rambunctious little pair, inseparable and jubilant in everything they did.
They would zoom and dash all over their village, causing mayhem and laughter abound wherever they went. Kind and accepting to all, they ensured they would make their town a brighter place. And it worked!
Nary a day would go by without the fillies greeting everypony with a smile and leading the other foals in new types of games and activities, quickly becoming pillars of their community. Their parents never had been so proud, if occasionally embarrassed from one of their typical pranks.
There was even talks of Celestia aspiring to be a teacher for the local schoolhouse someday, with Luna showing interest in the town’s weather team.
But Discord had other plans. Or rather, his plan to ruin all plans.
They were barely young mares when the anomalous...thing that was Discord had begun establishing his domain over the world and seemingly reality itself. The poor mares were subject to their neighbors and friends becoming miserable in the zany unpredictability of their new home. No routine, no joy, no plans and nothing being certain. Nothing made sense and many were driven away in search of a new land. Some, like their poor parents, were driven to raving lunacy.
Celestia and Luna themselves eventually ventured beyond to find a solution. In their travels they came upon a young unicorn, sagely despite his age. He had advised them of the only way to repel this plague to their nation and the only hope they could seek: Harmony.
The sisters long pondered what this Harmony should entail. All things working as one to find a balance. A balance of what? Good or evil? Reward and suffering? This deliberation took quite some time and searching, both across the land and within themselves. And one day, as if by magic, it struck them, in their souls...and in the form of a magic beam bestowing upon them six embodiments of purity and truth. Standing in awe of their new power, Celestia and Luna could scarcely believe it. They knew what needed to be done.
After ridding their home of the scourge of the chaos god, the land rejoiced and ponies began to hail them as their saviors. Together the two decided this power was to be shared with all and used only in defense. They set off to spread their word, and Harmony would unite the entire nation of what would soon be called Equestria.
The two found themselves in the company of the regal nobles of the most populous dominions of the land, who sought to take them under their wings and train them. As time passed by these nobles were soon appalled at what the mares would indulge in during their free time. Games, merriment, “ridiculous” and “nonsensical” childhood farcicalities. These weren’t proper future leaders! But they would be.
Gradually their respective schedules were packed with more and more studying, leaning the high life and proper etiquette befitting one of such stature. The two seemingly had little to no time anymore for the bonding they so treasured.
Time passed and so did the years. The faces they remembered smiling and frolicking with had grown to weary scowls and grimaces, the names becoming unrecognizable in the day-to-day slog of their routines. The smiles they once proudly beamed in moments of sincere joy had become reserved merely as formalities and the repeated exchanges with delegates. Fun had become a distant concern in the midst of the mountainous responsibilities now resting on their withers.
The sisters grew apart. Celestia at first sought to restrengthen their bond, but they’d spend so long apart at times that Luna has taken to secluding herself. Muttering to herself in subtle moments when she thought Celestia wasn’t looking. A shadow had hung over her, slowly growing and encompassing the younger alicorn.
Then it struck.
Nightmare Moon. As quickly as she’d revealed herself, she had been banished. And her little Luna along with her. The one pony she could always confide in during the wake of their parents’ passing, her dearest friend, corrupted under her very muzzle while she so arrogantly basked in the adoration of their nation’s denizens.
The solar alicorn’s heart was splintered, and for weeks she couldn’t bring herself to address her ponies on the matter. Celestia retreated into a shell, a false placating face. For her ponies. They didn’t deserve to see their princess so stricken with grief. She needed to remain strong. Dedicated. Ready for anything and everything her little ponies needed, no matter her own agony.
Friends became no more than titles, passed to nobles whom she favored and those she would come to dub duchesses or dukes. Joy seemed fleeting, jokes and grand retellings of past revelries but empty platitudes that only helped her gauge how long her evenings would wane.
Years passed. Decades. Centuries. Each one slower than the last. Celestia was a bit ashamed to admit she struggled to learn names of future descendants of the nobles she knew as the founders of their respective houses, seeing only the ancestors’ faces on the most recent generation. Enough time came to pass that Celestia grew more familiar with the pony in the mirror. Proud. Regal. Just. All-seeing. Powerful.
Alone...
Then she came.
Twilight Sparkle. Daughter to one of the castle’s stargazers and his wife, an up-and-coming author. Named for one of her ancestors, seven generations her senior. One of the brightest and most talented magical prodigies ponykind had come to know.
This sweet, dedicated, precocious little filly had brought a spark to her once more. A drive to learn all that there was to know, and everything beyond! The alicorn grew to see she could not keep Twilight satisfied with mere academia. She knew the young mare would go off in search of what Celestia couldn’t teach, which both encouraged and disheartened her. Nevertheless, she did all she could to pave the way for her precious protege’s greatness.
Only she would go on to overcome even her wildest expectations. On the longest day in the thousandth year, a day that some stargazers spoke of as the return of the Mare in the Moon. The Nightmare, the one that nearly doomed the entire world. Her little Lulu.
In one night, Twilight Sparkle and her new friends had set free the young mare from the shackles of her emotions. She was herself again. And Celestia welcomed her back with open arms, only overjoyed to have her beloved sister safe and at her side again.
And the two set to eagerly serving their ponies together again, as one. Celestia cherished every new moment they had together, each second a blessing. It was perfect.
Even still, despite this gift and the light seemingly back in her otherwise bleak life, Celestia couldn’t help but feel something was still amiss. It that seemed foreign now, if such a thing could be said for something so fundamental. But she-
“My bad!”
The sun princess was broken from her contemplations by a rather piercing voice disrupting the calm air around them. Across their picnic blanket Celestia saw her student rubbing her side, seemingly in discomfort. A small glance to the red ball suspended in an aura of violet magic showed the culprit of such discomfort in the unicorn, as Twilight shot a slight frown in the distance. Her grimace faded to a smirk as she caught eye of a trio of fillies approaching.
Celestia thought these three seemed just a tad familiar. Bringing forth her vast memory, she realized she had seen them here in Ponyville on at least a few occasions. The Cutie Mark Crusaders, as she recalled! Quite the troublesome little ones, but with a drive to explore and help others that far surpassed it. The earth pong filly spearheaded their approach, rubbing a hood behind her mane as she glanced away with anxiousness.
“I’m mighty sorry, Twilight. I guess that last buck was a lil’ too strong!” She chuckled awkwardly, eyes cast anywhere but the long she had addressed out of fear of shame.
Twilight, with an amused roll of her eyes, telekinetically directed the ball back to the one who had gifted her side with it. “That’s quite alright, Apple Bloom. But I’m sure your sister has taught you more than once of your latent earth pony strength. Even as a filly it’s still powerful enough to put some grown ponies to shame, which comes with a responsibility of knowing how to properly apply it.”
“Yes ma’am! I promise I’ll be more...” Apple Bloom tapered off in her apology as she caught a gander at the unicorn’s company. Her eyes growing to the size of the ball now held under her foreleg, she could barely contain the gasp as she jumped in excitement. “Holy crabapples, Princess Celestia!”
“Wow! The actual princess! Scootaloo, pinch me-OW!”
“What? You told me to. And don’t lose your marbles! We’ve seen the princess in town like, what, three times a year or so?” The little pegasus replied.
“Yeah, but not this close!” Sweetie Belle retorted, her gaze now swiveling back to the elder alicorn across the blanket.
Greeting the young ones with her signature smile and a gentle tone to her voice, Celestia sat upright on her haunches, still towering over the trio. “Hello, my little ponies. Enjoying this splendid afternoon?”
“Yes ma’am, yer majesty! We were playin’ ball over in that clearin’. Say, would ya like to come join us?”
The four others in the little gathering each had a distinct reaction to this question. The one who seemed most perplexed spoke up first, with a little snorting chuckle.
“Oh Apple Bloom, sweetie...“
“But Sweetie’s right he-“
“That’s very kind of you to offer, but the Princess and I were in the middle of an important discussion of the accords and processes for rural community ordinance. I’m afraid she wouldn’t have time to-“
“Why, that sounds quite delightful!” The aforementioned alicorn replied with a jubilant raising of her voice, standing at her full height and sidling up to the three fillies, each with an awed grin threatening to split their faces.
“REALLY?!” All three inquired.
“Of course! Though you will have to educate me on the rules. I’m rather, “rusty” I believe the phrase is?”
Now it was Twilight’s turn to be awed. She watched as her teacher began to wander off towards the open field before them, engaging in a lovely conversation of the game soon to be undertaken. So stunned was Twilight that her mouth stretched open to a degree that could only be akin to Pinkie Pie at the end of the day when she got to gorge herself on the leftover treats at Sugarcube Corner.
The Princess playing a game? With three fillies? Just like that?! But there were so many intricacies of the bills recently drummed up between the local mayor and Canterlotian dispatches about protection of local producers from more urban expansion-
“Twilight, do be sure to close your mouth. You’ll swallow a Parasprite!” Celestia called back with a barely suppressed giggle. “And why don’t you join us? You could use a little downtime!”
Flabbergasted, but unable to produce a reason to argue back, Twilight trotted off after the newly established quartet, unsure if the rest of the afternoon held a simple game of ball or a mischief unlike anything this town had ever seen.