Luster Dawn rolled her eyes. Almost packed. She’d been almost packed for two weeks now. No reason to wait until the last minute.
“Yes, Grace,” she said, almost-patiently. “I’m almost packed.” She shut the lid of her wheeled trunk, the lock clicking loud enough for even Grace to hear. “And done,” she said.
“Woah,” Grace replied, impressed. “Good timing.”She had the decency to wait about five seconds before she asked the question that was already hanging in the air. “Wanna help me pack?” she asked.
Luster grimaced to herself, then turned to face Grace, forcing a smile just like she’d practiced.
Grace--full name Graciela--was Luster’s young, griffon roommate at the School of Friendship. Grace, as a consequence of her own upbringing, had a thing for nicknames. Within fifteen minutes of meeting Luster, Grace had already saddled her with “El-Dee,” which morphed into “Big Elle,” which she simplified to “Ellie” before much longer. Luster had, in turn, made a point of calling her “Graciela,” putting extra edge in her voice to make it clear that she would prefer they used full-and-proper names. Or she had, at least until Amber, their Crystal Pony RA, pulled her aside and told her that Grace had complained that her roommate was creating an unnecessarily hostile living environment.
That’s what Luster assumed she’d said,at least. Amber had been much more diplomatic.
“Sorry,” Luster lied, lifting her trunk and wheeling it towards the door. “Can’t. Gotta make it to the train.”
“Aw, really?” Grace said, as irritatingly cheerful as ever. “It’s still so early! Can’t you spare just ten minutes?”
Luster very nearly sniffed in disdain. With the way she kept her half of the room, Grace was going to need a great deal more than ten minutes to get her things in order.
“Nope,” Luster lied again. “I have an early train. Got a long way to go.”
Luster had been hoping that would be enough to finally get Grace to shut up, but she just grinned wider--quite a feat for one saddled with a beak.
“Where ya goin’?” she asked. “Manehattan? Whinnyapolis? Vanhoover? Or are you gonna spend Hearth’s Warming in Mexicolt?” she added, waggling her eyebrows.
Luster actually did sniff this time. “I’m headed home,” she said, a note of disdain in her voice.
“And where’s that?”
“Bobsled,” Luster snapped, before she could stop herself.
That finally put a dent in Grace’s exuberance. “Bobsled?” she repeated. “Where’s that?”
Luster sighed to herself. “Out west,” she admitted. “Up in the mountains. Ski country.”
“Ooh!” Grace said, excitedly clapping her foreclaws together. “Ski country? Do you ski a lot, Ellie?”
Luster closed her eyes and took a deep, trembling breath. Unbidden, the words of Professor Fluttershy swam into her mind:
If you find yourself getting upset, she had said, try counting to ten. That will give you a little time to calm down and think before you do something you’re going to regret...
Luster paused, giving herself just enough time to think onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineTEN before continuing.
“No,” she said simply.
“Snowboard?” Grace asked insistently.
Luster, despite herself, gritted her teeth. “No,” she managed.
“Do ya go tubin’, at lea—?”
Luster whirled to face her, fire in her eyes. Grace jerked back in surprise.
“I stay at home,” she spat, “curled up by the fireplace with a nice book.” She snorted derisively. “It’s what Mom and I have always done.”
She glared at Grace, her blood boiling. Almost as a reflex, she began counting again--One, Two, Three--
“Your mom?” Grace asked curiously. “You’ve never mentioned your mom before.”
And, at that instant, Luster’s anger went out as suddenly as if she had plunged it in a bucket of ice water. No, she had very deliberately not mentioned her mother before. She had agreed--she had sworn--she wouldn’t. She had done so well all semester--and to screw it all up now—
Luster swallowed her panic, then forced a shaky smile.
“Yeah,” she said, her voice trembling. “Me and Mom. No biggie.”
Use a smile and a little slang to put other ponies at ease, Professor Pinkie Pie-Sandwich had said.
Grace cocked her head. “What about your dad?” she asked. “Does he stay inside, too?”
Luster shook her head. “I don’t have a dad,” she said.
Before Grace could get her question out, Luster picked up her trunk again, then pulled open the door to their dorm.
“Gotta run, Grace!” Luster called over her shoulder. “I’ll talk to you after break!”
It was almost worth it to see Grace’s expression of dismayed confusion as she slammed the door in her face.
* * *
With apologies to Professor Applejack, Luster had only been a little dishonest. Yes, she had a long way to go. Yes, she had to take the train. But the train wasn’t due to leave for at least another two hours.
Luster spent some time just wandering around Ponyville. She’d heard it had been just a little agrarian hamlet when Princess Twilight had first arrived, but she had a hard time believing it. The historical downtown section looked the same as in the history books, but the rest of the town had sprawled out into a thriving suburb, composed of the sort of deceptively small-town neighborhoods that hosted thousands of creatures at a time. Many of the residents worked at the School of Friendship, or in related industries like booksellers and mail services. Many others worked in Canterlot and commuted via the train. And some, it seemed, just wanted to live where it had happened--where Princess Twilight had grown into the mare that would one day take the throne.
As Luster made her way through town, she heaved a sigh. She had to admit that Grace wasn’t all that bad of a roommate. Sometimes, she Luster could almost forget she was there. It was just that Luster liked things a certain way, and Grace… didn’t. It had been just Luster and Mom for her entire childhood, and Mom had done a pretty good job of respecting her boundaries. To suddenly have to share a room--and to share a room with somegriff who had never even heard of boundaries in the first place--was, well, hard.
Finally, when she could delay no longer, Luster made her way to the train depot. When she arrived, there were so many other Friendship students already waiting that few of them noticed her arriving. Even fewer nodded or waved their greetings.
Exactly the way she liked it.
After Luster had finally squeezed her way onto the train, for Canterlot and Points Northward, she found it was crowded, hot, noisy, and stank of a thousand different body odors. But as the train wound its way north, stopping first at Canterlot, then turning northwest towards Fillydelphia, Chicoltgo, and Whinnyapolis, it shed more and more passengers with each stop. Finally, as the train began its climb into the mountains, Luster was alone. She just smiled to herself, snuggled deeper into her seat, and turned another page of her book.
Princess Twilight set the sun, raised it again, then let it dip down towards the horizon before the conductor called out, “Next stop, Bobsled Station! Next stop, Bobsled!”
By that point, Luster had been joined by a couple tourists, who, somehow, had decided that some time on the slopes was much more important than any mere holiday. Luster would have disliked them even if she didn’t consider herself a townie. They were too loud, and too nosy, and refused to leave ponies like her in peace. But, she thought to herself as she tucked her book away, they were the reason that Bobsled even existed, so she supposed she could tolerate them a little.
Luster was already standing by the exit as the train rolled to a stop. She stepped smartly off the train and, took a deep breath, filling her lungs with cool mountain air, heavy with the scent of snow, of woodsmoke, and the hundred other things that made Bobsled home. Then, dragging her trunk along behind her, she started her walk home.
Contrary to what the pamphlets would have you believe, Bobsled was actually a pretty small town. Most of the tourists stayed at the ski lodges, after all, and only came into town for last-minute supplies or a quick, off-resort meal. That meant that it wasn’t too much trouble for Luster to make her way home with minimal detours. Oh, it would be nice to check in on Filbert and Hazel, or get a fresh blueberry muffin or a slice of pizza at Redbrick’s, but she’d just as soon do that with Mom. She’d known most of these ponies her entire life, but Mom was always better at dealing with others.
And so, before too long, Luster found herself trotting down her street. The homes here were nice, but not extravagant; comfortable, but not ostentatious. Of course, being a fifteen-minute trot from the ski lodges meant that they were ridiculously expensive, which meant, in turn, that the ponies who lived here tended to be rather snooty--but Luster didn’t mind. She was perfectly satisfied with her own company, thank you very much.
And there, halfway up the street, was home. It was one of those places that tried to look like a log cabin, but only just concealed that it was worth more than most ponies would see in their lives. It was set far back from the road, and so had a generous yard for making snow princesses and building snowponies. Big windows looked out in all directions, most coated with a silver film to keep nosy creatures from peeking in. A cheerful little plume of smoke rose from one of the stone chimneys, and, even from here, Luster could see lights on in the kitchen.
She trotted up the three front steps, drew her house key from her saddlebags, and unlocked the front door. She pushed the door open, and, without hesitation, called out, “Mom! I’m home!”
“Sunshine!” came the joyous cry. “Come on back! I’m in the kitchen.”
Luster dropped her trunk just inside the front door and practically sprinted back to the kitchen. And there she was, just as she remembered--Mom, wearing her favorite apron, levitating a tray of steaming cookies out of the oven.
Luster lunged and wrapped her arms around her mothers’ neck. She buried her nose in Mom’s shoulder and took a deep breath, filling her nostrils with scents of baking and gardening and woodsmoke and sewing and home.
“Missed you,” she murmured.
And Celestia, ex-Princess of the Sun and Former Ruler of Equestria, wrapped her arms around her daughter in return.
“Missed you, too,” she murmured back.
Celestia was no stranger to the physical act of love. Far from it, in fact. She’d had quite a few lovers in her time: a great number of stallions, a few mares, and twice, when she’d been feeling particularly self-destructive, a dragon just into adulthood. However, despite the hundreds she had taken to bed over the years, Luster remained her first and only foal.
Her foal. The words themselves were almost beyond belief.
When Celestia took the power to move the sun for herself, the magic, for reasons unclear to her, halted certain biological processes. She stopped aging, for one; she felt exactly the same at twenty-five as she did at two-hundred and fifty. She grew tired less often, too, letting her pull a cart, march in formation, or fly across the countryside for distances that would make grown stallions tremble. Even pain seemed to have less of a hold on her: more than once, she had survived injuries that would have driven other ponies mad from the agony alone with little more than a nasty bruise.
But, despite all the positives of being Princess, there was one drawback. A single curse that, at least for her, outweighed any boon.
Luster took a deep breath, then smiled and snuggled deep into her bed. She spent a few more minutes luxuriating in the simple pleasure of having her Sun-blessed room to herself before finally opening her eyes.
Luster had spent her entire fourteen years turning her bedroom into a space she would never want to leave. She had carefully filled every one of her bookshelves with her favorite books, each and every one read and cherished and loved multiple times over, with a hoofful of tasteful curios rounding things out. Her desk, polished until it shone, was organized with razor-precision, with a world map tacked on the wall above it. Her reading nook, the one spot of careful disorder, was filled with an oversized bean bag chair that sat at the foot of her glass-fronted case of first-edition books. Even the mobile that hung in the center of the room, with models of the sun, the moon, and Equus, was exactly as she remembered it.
Luster gazed fondly at her things until the scent of breakfast tickled her nose--eggs and hay-bacon, by the smell of it. Luster’s grin widened, and she rolled out of bed. She looked herself over in the mirror on the back of her door, straightened her mane a little, then stepped out to greet the day.
When she entered the kitchen, Mom was still juicing oranges at the kitchen sink.
“Morning, Sunshine,” she said with a smile.
“Good morning, Mom,” Luster replied, slipping into her chair at the kitchen table.
Mom had already laid out breakfast for her--fried eggs, two strips of hay bacon, and a generous slice of homemade bread to boot. Of course, Mom’s portion was easily twice the size of hers, her bread already spread with butter and strawberry jam, but that was to be expected.
Luster only had to wait another moment until Mom brought over two glasses of fresh-squeezed orange juice, setting the smaller of the two in front of Luster, keeping the larger one for herself. As soon as Mom sat down, Luster grabbed one of the strips of hay bacon and took a big bite. So crunchy it was almost burned--just the way she liked it.
Mom took a bite of her bread and chewed thoughtfully for a moment as Luster plowed her way through her breakfast.
“So,” Mom asked, “how’s school?”
“It’s fine,” Luster replied automatically.
Mom waited for a moment for Luster to continue, but she just picked up her next strip of bacon and started eating that, too.
“What are they teaching you?” she asked.
Luster swallowed, but kept her eyes on her plate.
“Math,” she said. “And science. And a little bit of art and literature, too—”
Mom frowned. “Math?” she repeated. “At the School of Friendship?”
Luster nodded. “Headmare Starlight says it’s to make us better-rounded ponies,” she said. “Make us smarter. Even if we never use it again, it’s supposed to teach us how to think about problems.”
Mom gave a little nod. “That’s fair, I suppose,” she admitted. “But, what about, you know--the friendship?”
Luster picked up her slice of bread in her magic, and began to butter it.
“They don’t call it friendship, Mom,” she said. “They call it SEL—Social-Emotional Learning.”
“What’s the difference?”
Luster shrugged. “Science, I think. SEL has been studied and peer-reviewed and all that. Not like the old days, where everything was done on the fly.”
Mom gave a little snort. She had quite liked the old days.
Luster took a bite of her bread, and said no more. Mom watched her for a moment before a little smile crept across her face.
“So,” she said to Luster, “Let’s say that there’s a bully who won’t stop teasing you. What do your teachers say you should do?”
Luster swallowed her bite before she spoke.
“Talk to them,” she said firmly. “Try and get a sense of what their needs are as individualsl, and see if there’s another way the two of you can meet those needs. Maybe try and do another activity together to help them lower their guard. As long as you feel safe, that is.”
Mom frowned her diplomatic frown. The one that, in the old days, meant misery and war and famine.
“But why not just walk away?” she asked. “Get out of the situation and tell someone?”
“Because then that might exacerbate whatever problem the bully has in the first place,” Luster said automatically. “It would work in the short term, but exercising empathy--Kindness--might keep another creature from getting bullied later on.”
Celestia’s frown deepened. Luster’s answer was correct, of course--too correct. She had rattled it off with textbook precision, but without any actual feeling. It was almost as if she understood the theory of the thing, but had never had reason to put it into practice.
She briefly considered writing a letter to the school, informing them of the shortcomings in their curriculum--but, when she realized who might actually read said letter, dismissed the thought out of hoof.
Celestia had suspected that something had changed within her almost as soon as she put the crown on her head. But she didn’t know for certain until Prince Bert.
Celestia had still been consolidating the various pony kingdoms into what would become Equestria, and it was proving to be slow, difficult work. One of her rival kingdoms, however, saw the writing on the wall and sought an alliance with Equestria--on the condition that Celestia married their crown prince and produced an heir. After all, if they could breed into the Equestrian royal line, then their kingdom would last forever too, wouldn’t it?
As reluctant as she was to submit herself to a purely political union, Celestia felt she could not refuse. She had brought rivals under her wing through promises of economic prosperity and threats of violence, but those deals took years to forge, and their loyalties were shaky, at best. Here was an opportunity to weld an ally to her cause overnight, if she could, with bonds that would never break. And, perhaps--though she almost didn’t dare admit it to herself--to finally fulfill one of her fondest dreams.
Her marriage to Prince-Consort Camembert turned out to be short and unsatisfying. She tried everything she knew how to do, and a number of things she didn’t. Yet, no matter how many evenings she spent with her husband, the promised heir never came.
As much as it destroyed her to admit it, the problem was entirely hers. After all, Prince Bert had foisted enough bastard foals upon the serving-mares to leave little enough doubt about the matter. But, as desperate as she was for peace, the only thing holding their alliance together--to say nothing of their marriage--was the increasingly-faint promise of a child.
It was odd, to say the least--the thought that she could save her people if she merely locked her knees and thought of Equestria. But in the end, her efforts proved fruitless, in both the literal and metaphorical sense. Bert eventually, but predictably, lost his patience, and left her to sire a foal with a filly a quarter his age. His father, in anger, declared the union between their two countries null and void, and raised the banner of war. And Celestia, her heart broken into a thousand little pieces, led her soldiers to the field of battle for the first time since she had taken the crown.
Ten thousand mares widowed, twenty thousand children orphaned, forty thousand lives wasted. So much meaningless loss and suffering. All because Celestia could not make herself do the one thing that every single one of her foremothers had accomplished almost without trying.
To be fair, Celestia would have made a terrible mother. What time she did not spend surrounded by diplomats, lawmakers and soldiers was often spent in some daredevil stunt, anything to make her forget her pain and make her feel alive. That would have left little time to do more than say goodnight to any offspring she might have had. She knew it, and she knew that she knew it, and to believe otherwise would be nothing but a waste of effort.
At least, that was what she told herself when she lay awake late at night, visions of giggling foals trampling across her heart.
The bell over the door dinged as it swung open, letting in two snow-dusted ponies and a blast of winter chill. The smaller of the two shook herself off, then, with the glow of her horn, began to unwrap her scarf, revealing the pink visage and golden-orange mane of Luster Dawn.
“Luster!” came the cry from behind the counter. “You’re back! How’s life in the big city?”
“Afternoon, Mr. Filbert,” Luster called back, now unzipping her snow coat. “It’s fun.”
The elderly stallion behind the counter smiled. “They keeping you busy at that school of yours?”
“Yep,” Luster said, hanging her coat and scarf on one of the hooks by the door.
“The usual?” Mr. Filbert asked.
“Yes, please,”
“Alright,” Filbert said, turning away with a chuckle. “One hot cocoa with sprinkles and extra whip, one free Hearth’s Warming cookie on the side.”
Luster cocked her head to one side. “Mr. Filbert,” she said, “you don’t need to do that.”
“ ‘Course I do!” he replied. “Not every day our favorite customer comes back from school!”
Celestia, towering over her daughter, quietly unzipped her parka, revealing the hoof-knitted turtleneck sweater she wore underneath. Luster, as one of the few children who called Bobsled home year-round, was something of a minor celebrity. The adults took extra care with all of the young ‘uns--there were few enough of them to spoil, after all. Nevertheless, she thought as she hung her circus-tent sized coat next to Luster’s, it warmed her heart to see how much Luster loved them back. It gave her a little hope for poor Luster herself…
“Hazel!” Filbert called into the kitchen. “Guess who’s home?”
With a squeal of glee, a plump little mare came bustling out of the kitchen. She saw Luster and squealed again, then dashed around the counter and picked her up in her arms.
“Oh, we missed you—!” Hazel cried. Celestia noticed Luster roll her eyes, but her smile was warm and genuine.
As Celestia passed the counter, Filbert gave her a subtle nod of greeting. Celestia returned the nod, and Filbert, almost casually, grabbed a second mug. Everyone loved Luster, of course--but they had more than a little regard for her mother, too. She had worked very hard to shed her celebrity status here in little Bobsled, and part of the reason she spent so much time at Hazel and Filbert’s was because the two of them had learned, more quickly than the rest, how much she valued discretion.
“So,” Hazel said, finally setting Luster down, “What have you been up to today?”
Luster smiled brightly up at her. “Just a little Hearth’s Warming shopping,” she said, as she turned to walk towards their favorite table. “And Mom insists on picking out my school supplies, of course.”
At the mention of the ex-Princess, Hazel didn’t even bat an eye. She would be getting an extra tip today, Celestia noted.
“That’s what moms do, Dearie,” Hazel replied. “We always have to take care of our little ones, even when they’re not so little…”
Luster slid into their corner booth just as Filbert emerged from behind the counter, carrying a tray on his back. Celestia settled herself as Filbert dramatically laid the tray on the table.
“One Luster Special,” he said, setting her mug on the table, followed by a small plate of decorated gingerbread cookies. Luster picked up her hot cocoa and took a sip--and, as she did, Filbert passed the second mug to Celestia. She accepted it quietly, and nodded her thanks.
“Good to see ya, kiddo,” Filbert said to Luster, then turned and walked away.
Celestia picked up her own mug and a long drink. It was full of Filbert’s specialty, a favorite of hers that she had introduced him to shortly after moving to Bobsled--Neightalian-style hot cocoa, thick and goopy as melted chocolate. She felt the warmth ooze down her throat and into her belly, warming her from the inside out.
Meanwhile, Luster had set down her chocolate and started in on the cookies. “That was nice of them,” she said, as she bit off a gingerpony’s head.
“It was,” Celestia replied.
“Should we get them a Hearth’s Warming card?”
Celestia nodded. “Already have.”
Luster nodded approvingly, then turned back to her cookie.
Celestia had nearly finished her cocoa before she worked up the courage to ask her question. The question that had been burning inside her since before Luster had even gotten home, the one that, if she were brave enough, she would have picked her up and shook her to get an answer to the moment she walked through the door…
“So,” Celestia asked, as casually as she could, “how are you getting along with your teacher?”
Luster looked up with a frown.
“Who, Professor Applejack?” she asked.
Celestia bit her lip. “No… your teacher-teacher.”
Luster frowned and cocked her head.
“You know…” Celestia said, almost pleadingly. She licked her lips, then leaned forward. “Princess Twilight?” she whispered.
Instantly, the temperature in the restaurant dropped by several degrees, in a way that had nothing to do with the gust of snow that blasted down the street.
Luster waited several cold, frigid seconds before she answered.
“The Princess isn’t really my teacher, Mom,” she said.
“She said she would be. In that letter she sent.”
“Yeah, but she spends so much time in Canterlot that I don’t really see her all that often.”
Celestia’s frown deeped. “That doesn’t seem very responsible of her.”
Luster rolled her eyes. “She’s been dealing with the Diamond Dog rebellions, Mom.”
Celestia raised an eyebrow. “There’s a rebellion?”
“It’s in the papers, Mom.”
Celestia shut her mouth and looked down at her cocoa, with nothing but the scratchy radio playing in the corner to break Luster’s accusing silence.
He had been the captain of a cruise ship. She, a particularly fetching stewardess.
Celestia found that retirement didn’t suit her. She had chosen Silver Shoals primarily for Luna’s sake, feeling that the relative quiet would be good for her sister. Good for the rage, jealousy, and self-loathing that still filled her heart. And it had helped: with nothing on their schedule save for nightly games of bingo and shuffleboard, the two of them were finally able to get the sort of rest that had evaded them for centuries.
But Celestia soon grew restless. Her sense of adventure would not allow her to stay still this long. There was too much to do to sleep the days away. So, she took her leave of Luna, and of Silver Shores in general, and made her way out into the world.
She had fantasized for many, many years about what she would do once she regained her freedom, and she spent the next months of her life living every single one of them. She did a brief stint as a strongmare in the circus, a tour guide in a museum, and even a couple weeks as a park ranger on the shores of a lake in the depths of the mountains. It wasn’t until the following summer when she was able to enact one of her fondest dreams, however: being a crewmate on a cruise ship in the Bahamares.
Shipboard life was much less glamorous as she had been led to believe. For one, she discovered that she wasn’t as immune to seasickness as she had once thought. And the humidity played merry havoc with her mane and tail. And, for some reason, she hadn’t expected the sheer number of tourists who wanted nothing more than to corner her and make small talk, all for the sake of saying that they and the ex-Princess had become best of friends--regardless of how many other tourists were still waiting for her to bring them towels and suntan lotion.
That is not to say there were no benefits to her position. The view, for one, was unparalleled. And it was surprisingly refreshing to soak in the sun without worrying about what time it was going to set. But the best part came after night had fallen, and the moon had started to rise.
Captain Halyard cut quite the figure aboard his ship. He was a middle-aged unicorn stallion, perhaps in his forties or fifties, and had not an ounce of fat on his body. His bright-red coat shone like rubies in the sun, with little streaks of silver here and there making him all the more handsome.
Their first evening out of port, he had invited Celestia to dinner in his cabin, purely as a courtesy to the ex-Princess. A week later, Celestia spotted him in the canteen, and invited him to share a sandwich with her. Two or three days after that, he invited her to his table for dinner again, and Celestia realized, to her own surprise, that she had been hoping he would. Soon, they were sharing dinner every night--and, even sooner than that, every breakfast. Sometimes, they even ordered room service.
When they finally parted at the end of the cruise, they parted as friends--though their friendship was the sort that would have made Twilight blush scarlet. Celestia had planned to go straight from the cruise ship to her next adventure, though, now that she was actually off the boat, she found herself strangely tired. And so, she decided to rest herself a bit first, in her own private villa on the beach.
It took her another month to realize that her lingering nausea had nothing to do with seasickness.
“So,” Celestia asked, “are you enjoying school? Really?”
She and Luster were now washing the dishes. Both of them knew that Celestia’s magic was powerful enough for her to clean and sanitize the dishes by herself, even without using soap and water. But there was something comforting about working with your hooves--especially with someone you love by your side.
Luster finished drying the plate she was holding before answering.
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s fun.”
“What’s your favorite part?” Celestia pressed her.
Again, a few moments’ hesitation.
“I like the learning,” Luster replied, finally. “It’s interesting.”
Celestia picked up the next plate in her teeth, set it in the soapy water, then used a washcloth to scrub it, all while waiting for Luster to continue. However, she had apparently answered the question to her own satisfaction, and said nothing more.
“Are you making friends?” Celestia asked, as she rinsed the plate off and passed it to her daughter.
Luster dried the plate off, then set it on the counter with the rest.
“Not really,” Luster replied. “The other fillies are kinda…”
“Kinda what, Dear?” Celestia asked absently, as she scrubbed at one of their glasses.
“Kinda mean,” Luster finished.
Celestia froze, mid-scrub. An ancient anger boiled up inside her--an anger, not from the Old Days, but the Old Old Days. When the land that would become Equestria was still savage and wild. When she had been, not the Sun Queen, but the War Goddess. When she had protected ponies from waking nightmares, just as her sister fought them in dreams. An old feeling, a primal feeling, one of fire and pain. The draw, the pull, the need to charge in, horn blazing, and leave naught but ashen shadows on the floor. Not just to kill, but to terrify--to teach that harming those under her charge was not to invite anger, but apocalypse--
No.
She dropped the glass she was holding in her magic into the sink, splashing the kitchen with dirty water. Luster yelped, then lunged forward to pluck it from the sink.
Celestia gritted her teeth. She was not that pony anymore. She was no avenging angel, protecting Equestria from the darkness that would swallow it whole--she was a mother. A mom, for Tartarus’s sake. Her battles were no longer showdowns with fiends and monsters, but PTA meetings, bake sales, and quilting bees. She would have been a soccer mom, if Luster had been interested in sports.
But someone is hurting our baby, raged the War Goddess inside her.
But we will hurt her even more if we bring down fire from heaven, she shot back. She is a young mare. She needs to learn. We won’t always be there for her, and—
And she realized she didn’t know how to finish the thought.
Celestia realized that Luster, water still dripping from her mane, was now looking up at her, an unspoken question in her eyes. She swallowed, then picked up another glass with exaggerated care.
“What do you mean, they’re mean?” Celestia asked, fighting with every fiber of her being to keep her voice neutral. “Are they making fun of you?”
Luster took her time answering. Celestia counted every heartbeat as if it was the ticking of a time bomb.
“It’s just,” Luster said finally, “they’re so annoying.”
Luster heaved a heavy sigh. “They always keep on interrupting me,” she said. “We have a lot of homework to do, and I want to make sure to study, too, so I don’t fall behind. But there’s always a party, or a picnic, or something else stupid that’s going on, and they keep on bugging and bugging me, even after I tell them I need to stay inside and work!”
In the sudden, ringing silence of the kitchen, Luster’s chest rose and fell, trembling the slightest bit as it did. Celestia stared at her, her gaze boring a hole through her. Luster felt the weight of her stare, and, suddenly self-conscious, she reached out with her magic, grabbed a small cluster of silverware, and dunked it into the soapy water.
“I’m sorry,” she said, unsure of why she was apologizing.
Celestia seemed to shake herself awake.
“No,” she said, “No, I am.”
And, unlike her daughter, she knew exactly what she had to apologize for.
It took Celestia another two months before she spoke to Cadence.
She was still staying in her seaside villa. This hadn’t been the plan. She was due to go on a ski adventure next. But, in all her planning, she had never even dreamed of being in this situation. She felt paralyzed, with a dozen emotions she could barely name.
Part of her was absolutely overjoyed at the thought she was about to, finally, have a foal of her very own. Part of her hoped that something would happen, and that would be the end of it. Part of her hoped that Captain Halyard would come back from sea and sweep her off her hooves, let someone else make all the decisions for once. Part of her hated herself for not being more careful. But mostly, she was shocked, amazed, terrified, and a dozen other flavors of surprised that she could even find herself in this situation.
After two months of fear and indecision, she finally managed to put pen to paper. The note--when she finished it--was a simple one, just asking Cadence to come meet her as soon as she could get away. The twenty-two notes she had written before that one had been a mix of hysterical, flippant, coldly clinical, and childish. But every one of them had stopped at the same phrase:
Cadence, I’m—
She couldn’t even bring herself to write the word.
Four days later, Cadence knocked on Celestia’s front door. Celestia let her inside, and the two of them made pleasant small talk while Celestia fixed them both a cup of tea. Cadence took a sip from her cup, then looked Celestia in the eye and asked what was wrong. And suddenly, all of Celestia’s fear, shock, surprise, and loneliness swelled up inside her. She wept like a little filly, wept and hugged Cadence to her, wept for pain and fear and relief.
They both knew that this was not the first time Cadence had had this conversation with a frightened mother-to-be. They both knew that much of what she said was almost rote by this point. But Cadence swore to her--swore to her aunt by everything she held sacred--that she would do everything in her power to help her through this.
It was Cadence who suggested, among all the other preparations, that Celestia write Luna and inform her that she was about to become an aunt. But Cadence did not suggest informing Twilight. She had assumed that would have been a given.
She assumed incorrectly, of course. Celestia felt no need to inform her of that fact.
Luster knocked twice at the door, then used her magic to turn the knob and push it open.
“Hey, Mom?” she asked. “Are you ready for—?”
Suddenly, the door slammed shut with a deafening bang. Luster jerked back in surprise and yelped. A moment later, the doorknob rattled, and the door swung partway open, revealing a chagrined Celestia.
“I’m sorry,” she said, stepping into the hall, “I didn’t scare you, did I?”
Luster shot her a nasty look. “You did,” she said.
Celestia deflated the slightest bit. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I… I know it’s only been a few months, but it’s been quiet around here, and—” She swallowed and shook her head. “What did you need?” she asked.
“I was going to ask if you were ready to put our Hearth’s Warming dolls up on the mantel,” she said grumpily. “But, now…”
Luster’s eyes flicked significantly towards the door frame, then back up at her mother. Celestia pursed her lips, but her gaze remained steady. Luster watched her for a moment, then glanced at the door frame again, then raised her eyebrows suggestively. Celestia tilted her head to one side and let out a little sigh of exasperation. Luster widened her eyes, and gave the slightest, trembling frown—
“Oh, alright,” Celestia said, stepping away from the door and pulling it open. “Just don’t go poking around too much, and I mean it. There’s some really confidential stuff—”
“I know, I know,” Luster said with a roll of her eyes. “Secrets and lies, secrets and lies…”
And Luster trotted forward, into her second-favorite room in the house.
Celestia’s study had been built, as far as Luster had been able to tell, as a living room of some sort. It was one of the largest rooms in the house, and it even had its own fireplace for the winter. But then again, Mom was pretty big herself, and needed lots of space to spread out--especially if you did the sort of work she did.
As she entered, Luster took a deep breath of all the smells: old paper, fresh ink, and rosewater perfume, all tinged with the faintest hint of woodsmoke and warmth from the rays of the sun. Luster trotted over to the windows, which took up most of one wall, stood up, and put her hooves on the windowsill. From here, she could see all of Bobsled spreading out below her, with a ski lodge high on the mountain above, and the dark serpentine of the train tracks disappearing behind another peak. She’d seen this view dozens of times, but never got tired of it.
In fact--and the realization made her blink in surprise--she liked it even better than the view from Canterlot. At the time, she had thought she hadn’t been impressed because of her nerves about her upcoming meeting with Princess Twilight. But now, she knew--it was because she had almost the exact same view from outside her mother’s window.
Behind her, Luster heard a rustle of paper. She turned, and saw Mom hurriedly sliding a sheaf of papers into a drawer of her desk.
Luster rolled her eyes. “C’mon,” she said, “I told you I wasn’t going to go digging.”
“And I told you,” Mom shot back, “I have some confidential stuff in here. I trust you,” she added, “but still, there’s some things I don’t want you to see, even by accident.”
Luster hopped down from the window, then trotted over to the desk. It was massive, almost as large as a full-size kitchen table. Even so, nearly every square inch of it was covered in stacks of papers, with more tucked away in the drawers and locked away in the rich walnut filing cabinets that lined the walls. The only real space left on the desktop was a small clearing for Mom’s typewriter, a mug overflowing with dull quills and half-broken pencils, a small vase of wilted flowers, and--Luster crinkled her nose--an old, discolored photograph of the two of them, smiling up at the camera. Luster’s mane stuck up all weird, she had something on her face, and her grin showed off several of her missing teeth, but Mom was hugging and kissing her all the same.
“So,”Luster asked, looking over the vast towers of paper, “who are you pretending to be now?”
Mom sighed and shook her head. Then, she bent down and pointed at one stack with her horn.
“That,” she said, “is a Waterworks production.”
Luster rolled her eyes again. “Let me guess,” she interjected. “Lonely unicorn princess trapped in tower seeks single earth pony stallion for brief but passionate fling?”
Mom smirked. “Almost,” she said. “This time, it’s a pegasus mayor, but you get the jist of it.”
“That’s the jist of all of them, Mom.”
“Which is probably why Waterworks isn’t much of a bestseller,” she replied. “But Wanderlust—” she pointed at a fresh stack “--well, for this installment I had to do a little more research. But her travelogues are always popular.” She sighed. “I just wished I could get away, make them into actual travel guides—”
“And who’s this?” Luster asked, picking up a sheet of the top of another stack in her magic. “Campaign Colors…?”
“War historian,” Mom said, pushing the sheet back down with her own magic. “Covering the griffon unification wars of the sixth century--at least,” she added with a smile, “as well as I can remember them.”
Luster grinned. It was a shame that Mom never went out for Nightmare Night, because she was a master of disguises--at least as far as her writing career went.
Mom had a thousand years worth of personal savings, not to mention a stipend from the Palace, and so had no real need for a career of any sort. But Mom had told her that--despite the fact that she loved Luster with all her heart--she found herself starting to get bored during the day, when all the laundry had been done and all the dishes had been washed and Luster was lying down for a nap. One day, perhaps missing the time she spent lecturing students, she had dashed off a quick review of a novel she had just finished reading, and, on a whim, signed it Saddle Stitch—a bookbinding term she must have picked up somewhere over her many years. She sat on the review for a week or two, then, unsure of what else to do with it, sent it to a newspaper in Salt Lick City. As it turned out, they liked it quite a bit, and were more than happy to pay Ms. Stitch for any other reviews she might want to send along.
And so, Mom’s empire of pseudonyms had been born. Each time she decided she wanted to write something different, she just invented a new author and went to town. Waterworks wrote sappy romances, Wanderlust did travelogues and brochures, Potato Casserole catalogued exotic recipes, Rip-Roar penned adventure tales, and Campaign Colors handled war history, apparently--to say nothing of Deep Hoof, Politique, and Firebrand, who wrote policy advice, political theory, and manifestos, respectively.
Quite a resumé--but Luster suspected that Mom wrote even more than she let on. After all, there were all those filing cabinets… and Mom rarely let her in her study without good reason, after all.
But Luster still loved the study all the same. For one, it was always exciting to be so close to where so many books had been born. And she loved being at her mothers’ side, for another. But there was more to it than that…
Luster turned and trotted to the fourth wall of the room, which was composed entirely of books. Well, bookshelves. The smile on her face slowly grew as she let her gaze wander across them. The warm, brown wood held hundreds of volumes, ranging from ancient leather-bound treatises on politics and science to cheap paperback collections of mysteries and science-fiction. Like Luster herself, Mom had left some spaces for the occasional curio--a crystal ball, a small golden statue of an alicorn, a set of long, tawny-brown feathers, a stone carving of a unicorn looking at the stars--but Luster barely noticed. It was the books that she loved. A whole library, right here in Mom’s study!
And then, something caught her eye. She leaned forward and peered closer at it.
“Luster!” Mom snapped. “Get away from there!”
But Luster frowned and lit her horn. With a little effort, she pulled something free from where it had been stuck between a thick reference book and the wood beside it. It took her a moment to recognize what she was looking at: a Hearth’s Warming card from several years ago, judging from the yellowing around the edges.
“Luster—!”
Luster opened the card, and her frown deepened. Inside lay a photograph--a family portrait, by the looks of things. In it, a stallion, slate-gray with leathery wings, stood knee-deep in the snow. His expression was half theatrical smile, half grimace of pain, a fact explained by the colt chewing affectionately on his ear. The colt, standing on his father’s back and wearing a matching sweater, couldn’t be more than three or four years old. A filly--the colt’s twin, by the looks of it--hung from her father’s neck, squealing in delight at the snow below her. And--Luster blinked--behind them stood another pony, nearly twice as tall as the stallion, her coat the indigo of the night sky, her eyes shining bright as stars.
...eyes that, somehow, she thought she recognized…
“Luster, what are you—?”
A shadow fell over the picture, making Luster start. She looked up to find her mother looming over her, and felt the blood drain from her face. However, Mom’s eyes were no longer angry. They looked almost--what could you call it?--far away. She lit her horn, and plucked the card and the photograph from Luster’s grasp. She looked at it for a moment, then took a deep breath and let it out.
“That’s…”
“Princess Luna,” Luster interjected. “I know.”
“Your Aunt Luna,” Celestia corrected her gently, her voice grave. “Luna, and her husband Echo, and their two children…”
Luster blinked in surprise, then looked down at the photo. “I have cousins?” she managed to ask.
Celestia frowned. “Of course you do,” she said. “You remember your cousin Cadance?”
Luster huffed. “You know what I mean. Prin--Aunt Luna has kids?”
Celestia nodded. “Yes, she does. So that would mean you have cousins, yes.” She hesitated. “You’ve met her a couple times, you know,” she added.
“Not that I remember,” Luster insisted.
“No, you wouldn’t,” Celestia confirmed. “Not most of them, at least. But she told me she visited you once or twice in your dreams…”
Luster looked up at her in alarm. “That was her?” she squeaked. “She was--she was creepy!”
Celestia nodded. “Then that was almost certainly her. She tries to soothe nightmares and bad dreams when she can--but if you’re not expecting her, yes, she can be somewhat alarming.”
“She told you about that?” Luster asked.
“Yes, she did,” Celestia said simply.
Luster turned back at the photo and frowned. The four of them looked so happy—
“Mom?” she asked. “Why haven’t we visited them? Or—” she swallowed. “Why haven’t they visited us?”
She stared at the photo for another moment--before it began to drift upwards. Luster turned and looked up at her mother, who was staring, eyes fixed, on the picture as she pulled it closer to herself.
And, as Luster looked at her mother, her eyes widened. Celestia’s expression was--it was one that she had never seen before on her face. Never expected to see. It was deep and lonely and sad, full of mingled sorrow and pain and regret. It was the first time, in all of Luster’s years, that her mother looked old.
“Mom?” she said, her voice trembling. Celestia did not react.
“Mom?” she repeated, reaching out a shaking hoof, and touching her mother on the shoulder.
At her touch, Celestia jumped. She dropped the card and looked around the room, her eyes wild, almost as if she had forgotten where she was.
“Mom?” Luster said one more time.
Finally, Celestia looked down at her daughter, and her eyes seemed to clear. Her panicked breathing started to slow. And, with some effort, she swallowed.
“Yes, Sunshine?” Celestia asked.
“Is everything okay?”
As Luster watched, Celestia seemed to grow even older, withdrawing even further inside herself.
“Of course it is, Sweetie,” she said. Both of them heard the lie.
Luster looked up nervously at her, and took a deep breath.
Celestia nodded weakly. “Go on,” she said.
“Mom…” Luster began shakily. She lit her horn, then picked up the card from the floor and passed it back to her. “Is this like the newspaper thing?” she asked.
Celestia took the card and, absently, put it back on one of her shelves--but, Luster noticed, she did not look at it again.
“Yes,” she said, looking away. “Yes, it’s like the newspaper thing.”
The two of them stood there uneasily in the silence for several seconds. Finally, Celestia smiled an uneasy smile.
“So,” she said, “you wanted to—to put up our dolls?”
Luster nodded. “Yeah. I-if you’re ready,” she added.
Celestia returned the nod. “Yeah,” she said, “of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
She walked to the door and opened it. She very nearly walked through, but she stopped and turned back to Luster.
“Come on,” she said. The two words barely held back a sea of emotion: nostalgia, fear, anger, love, and a dozen others that Luster had not learned the names to.
Luster swallowed, ducked her head, and hurried from the room. Celestia followed her out, then locked the door behind them.
Cadence helped find a place for Celestia in Bobsled--somewhere nice, but out of the way. Somewhere where she could have all the conveniences of life in modern Equestria, but where the paparazzi might have a harder time finding her.
That was just as well, because Celestia didn’t feel much like being found.
Celestia was miserable. She could have sworn that somepony had told her, once, that pregnancy was easy, almost pleasant. She wanted to find whichever mare had told her so and throttle them. For eleven months, she was so sick she could barely keep anything down. What she could keep down raced through her, as her foal treated her gut as their own personal punching bag. She was so sensitive to smells she could barely even shop for her own food, and her hormones were so out of control that, most days, it was all she could do to keep from crying.
She never wrote Captain Halyard. She should have--he had a right--but something in her kept her from telling him. She had gotten herself into this predicament, and she didn’t feel a need to make somepony else feel sorry for her. Or brag to his friends that he had sired a foal with the Princess. She needed someone to care for her, not use her to stroke their own pride or ego. And so, the only ponies she kept around her were the ones she trusted with all her heart: Luna, who could never betray her again, and Cadance, who had been through this suffering before.
The only bright spot in her life was that she barely showed. Many mammals bloated up like balloons before they bore their young, but ponies had the good graces to keep their pregnancies hidden until they were nearly full-term. Even so, Celestia’s frame was so large, and her foal so small, that Luna almost didn’t believe she was with child until Celestia’s teats began to swell with new milk.
Compared to the pregnancy, giving birth was a dream. Excruciating, unimaginable pain, of course--but surprisingly brief. Celestia’s womb was made to bear alicorn-sized foals. In comparison, a regular pony filly was almost easy. And so, barely an hour after she woke Cadance and Luna with her screaming, Celestia gave birth to her foal, just as the sun began to rise.
She had spent no small portion of the last eleven months trying to think of a name for her child. Perhaps a name from myth, like Bucephalus or Phaeton or Sleipnir. Maybe something traditional, like Glory, or Sunbeam, or Sparkler. Or perhaps even Laurel, after her own mother. But, as she held her filly, the first rays of the sun broke over the horizon, she could think of no more fitting name than one that memorialized that very moment.
She named her Luster Dawn, for the beauty of the sun that had once been hers.
The fire burned low in the fireplace, bathing the room in flickering red-orange light. From where she lay, Celestia considered heaping another log on the fire--but then again, Hearth’s Warming Day was very nearly over. Perhaps it was time to just go to bed and leave the fire to go out on its own.
Except…
Celestia looked down at her daughter, and smiled. The two of them lay on the rug before the fireplace, Luster snuggled up to her mother’s side, sound asleep. Her little face, so often creased with annoyance and dismay, was smooth and peaceful now.
Celestia sighed to herself. What she wouldn’t give to keep her that way forever…
The two of them lay amongst the wreckage of what had been their Hearth’s Warming. Luster’s presents to Celestia had been modest, at best: a box of fudge from Sugarcube Corner, a postcard featuring the School of Friendship, a snowglobe of Canterlot, and the messy wreck of a knit hat that Professor Belle had encouraged her class to attempt. Celestia’s presents to Luster were modest as well--she was perfectly happy with her life as it was, thank you very much, and gifts would only be extra weight to carry back to Ponyville. Nevertheless, though they were few in number, each one was a rare and precious thing: a first-edition copy of Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone, signed by the author; a set of earmuffs made from winterchilla fur and enchanted with a spell of silence; and a sphere of milky quartz that would glow with dim light and hover in place on command, perfect for late-night reading. There were more, besides--fresh cookies from Hazel and Filbert, a fuzzy pink scarf from Kodiak at the ski shop, and a bag of hard candies from Lollipop, among others.
Celestia took a slow, deep breath, then let it out. She looked down at Luster again, and a little smile danced its way across her lips. It was good to see that Bobsled loved Luster almost as much as she herself did… even if it was still up in the air whether Luster would ever be able to return the favor. Celestia bent down and kissed her daughter on the forehead, then laid her head down besides hers. As they lay there, Celestia felt her heart swell within her, swell so large it almost burst. She closed her eyes, and a tear rolled down her cheek.
It was remarkable, really. She had loved thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of ponies in her time. She’d had to, to be a good Princess. She wouldn’t have been able to do all she’d had to do for her thousand-plus years if she didn’t love them. But her love had always been in the abstract: she fought and bled for her ponies, not because she knew and cared for them individually, but because they were ponies. Who else was there to care for them, if not she?
She still had that same capacity to love, of course--but now, as ex-Princess, she had only a single pony to care for. So all the love, the compassion, the worry, and the fear that she had felt for millions of ponies had condensed, had collapsed, had coalesced into a single filly--a filly that was rapidly becoming her own mare.
But that was part of the problem, wasn’t it? With her only charge growing up and heading off to school, there were precious few demands on her time. Which meant that there was little to keep her from pondering the question that had plagued her for the past fifteen years—
What in the name of Tartarus was she so afraid of?
Celestia had never considered herself a coward. A reluctant general, to be sure--especially when the creatures at the other end of the field were more ponies, the only difference between she and they was a different-colored uniform, and the only stakes for the battle were squiggles on a map. She had never seen the value in trading thousands of equine lives for the single stroke of a quill, and never would. But that didn’t make her a coward, did it? And if it didn’t, then why had fear come to define so much of her life lately?
Some anxiety was to be expected. That was what had initially driven her into hiding, when she first found she was pregnant. Celestia had built her reputation as Princess on being eternal and unchanging as the sun itself. What would happen to Equestria if they learned that Celestia herself--the one, immutable point of reference in a constantly shifting world--was with foal? And there was shame in it, too, shame that she of all ponies, supposedly the wisest being in Equestria, was carrying a bastard--and a sailor’s bastard, at that. What would that do to her incorruptible image?
But, even after Luster had been born, she still found excuses to keep herself hidden. Now that the immediate dangers had passed, she still felt no reason to return to life as a public figure, no matter how small her role. The presence of Luster could be explained, if she was forced to do so. And there was something to be said for giving her daughter as normal of a life as she could manage, given the circumstances. But Celestia had learned to value her privacy during her pregnancy--and she continued to enjoy their little measure of peace all through Luster’s foalhood. But did that really mean she needed to insulate herself so thoroughly as she did from the wider world? Very nearly become nothing but a memory, save to those few shopkeepers to whom she trusted her business?
Celestia had taken every reasonable precaution--and a few unreasonable ones--to keep the world from discovering her and her daughter. But something must have slipped out. Some paparazzo, over their years, must have snapped a photograph of the two of them--must have noticed that Celestia and Luster had the same tall, leggy build, the same wavy mane, even, in some way, the same shape to their muzzles--and put the pieces together. But the multitude she had feared would come had never yet beat its path to her door.
She had never fully understood why. Perhaps her strategizing had worked, and her fame had faded until she had become just another townie in just another ski village somewhere out west. Perhaps the press had chosen to respect her privacy, out of gratitude for what she had once been. Perhaps Destiny, Fate, The Universe, or even Harmony itself had taken a stand for the one who had stood so long at their reins. Perhaps the current Princess had put a moratorium on any such attention (and, if she had, it was a kindness Celestia did not deserve). Or maybe, just maybe, she had somehow been incredibly lucky.
But in any case, Celestia had paid a heavy price for her caution.
The outside world held no appeal for her any longer. Since she had laid down her crown, she no longer had a need to keep tabs on the goings-on, but even so: the only pony in the world that mattered to her anymore was her daughter. To Tartarus with the newspapers, then. All they could do was remind her of everything she was missing.
Of everyone she was missing. At Canterlot, she had a few friends: Raven, of course, was one. And she knew Fancy Pants well enough. Blueblood was endearing in his own way, once you learned how to tune out his bluster. And Luna and Cadance--how her heart ached for them. She loved Luster with all her heart--and yet, it pained her, more than a little, to see the faces of her erstwhile friends in the paper, to hear of their successes and their failures, their journeys and their adventures, to remember a time when she sat at the center of their collective universe, instead of merely watching their stars through a telescope.
And, speaking of stars--poor Princess Twilight. Celestia grimaced to herself at the thought of what she had put her through.
Once, they had loved each other almost as mother and daughter. Once, they had very nearly been the best of friends. But, just as Twilight was settling into her new duties as Sole Princess of Equestria--just when she needed the help of her teacher and mentor most--Celestia had fallen pregnant.
Twilight, of course, had no idea how profoundly everything had changed for her mentor. She couldn’t have known. So, she kept on sending her letters, same as always, regular as clockwork. But Celestia stopped replying. Cut her off cold. Hadn’t even sent her a postcard in fifteen years.
Celestia still had Twilight’s letters, of course, in a cardboard box in the attic. She’d opened one or two early on, but they only made the pain worse. She had thought about burning them, just to be rid of the guilt, but then, what would happen if the old magic still lingered? What would Twilight think if she suddenly received a deluge of decade-old letters, dusty and unopened?
Celestia had convinced herself that it was better this way. After all, Twilight was smart--smarter than Celestia had ever been. By now, she must have realized the full costs of becoming Princess. Would she believe that Celestia had not known that taking the crown meant giving up her chance to have children? Would she think it a betrayal that Celestia had condemned her to a millennium of lonely nights and empty mornings? Would she assume that Celestia had known, and, like so many times before, had simply decided to keep her silence? And worst of all--what if she hadn’t figured it out? What if Celestia had to be the one to tell her about her own body’s betrayal?
Eventually, the letters had stopped. Part of Celestia was grateful for that: it meant Twilight had given up hope. And that was alright, wasn’t it? After all, that meant she was no longer waiting for a response. Meant that Celestia was no longer disappointing her. And wouldn’t contacting her, after all this time, just open old wounds better left alone?
It was a lie, yes, but a convenient one. And there was just enough truth in it for Celestia to convince herself she believed it.
But the guilt felt for Twilight was nothing compared to what she felt for Luster.
Yes, Celestia loved her with all her heart--but ponies were not meant to live isolated lives, little ponies most of all. Celestia had done her best to raise her according to the principles of friendship, but with no one to be friends with, Luster had grown up alone. And, as much as the two of them loved Bobsled, Celestia knew it was no town for children. She had spent more nights than she could count weeping for all the painful little partings her daughter suffered. And many more, knowing that greater pain was still to come…
The thought made Celestia open her eyes. Almost without conscious thought, she raised her head and looked down the hall, through the darkened house, and towards her study. She did not need to rise, for she could see it in her mind’s eye: there, on the bookshelf in the corner, on the highest shelf, pressed against the wall, her greatest, most shameful, most terrifying secret.
She had already decided that she would not lie to Luster when she asked what it was. But that determination did not mean she had to flaunt it. She had meant what she said: she had sensitive political documents hidden in her office, documents that might even spark war if word got out that she had them. But that was not why she kept Luster out of her study: it was to keep her from asking what was in the jar she kept on the top shelf.
And, almost like a reflex, she felt her mind drift back to that first, terrible morning. It had been winter. Luster had been seven. Celestia had gotten into the habit of waking early, making a fresh breakfast for the two of them, then bundling her daughter up and walking her to school. And that had been the plan that day. She had woken, as always, just before her alarm, rolled out of bed, and walked to the bathroom. She washed her face, then dried it off, and decided to save her full morning routine for after she returned from school. She could get away with putting her mane in a ponytail today, surely? After all, you could barely tell who was who in those parkas, let alone how well they were dressed—
And then, in the mirror, she saw it.
She stared, open-mouthed, at her mirror. She stared, eyes wide and unseeing. She stared until Luster, her coat buttoned crookedly, had ventured in to ask why they hadn’t gone to school yet. And Celestia had leapt into panicked action. She lit her horn and tore the thing free, letting it fall from her grasp. Then, she had picked Luster up in her magic, and dashed into the kitchen, her daughter squealing in fright. She had shoved a Toaster Tart in Luster’s pocket, tore open the front door, and practically hurled her out into the snow, slamming the door shut behind her before she even landed.
Celestia had stood there, back pressed to the front door, until her breathing finally slowed. Luster would be okay, wouldn’t she? She would find her way--she knew where the school was, of course, and there were enough lingering students that she couldn’t get lost. Right?
Hesitantly, she stepped away, not entirely trusting the floor to be there when she set down her hooves. Carefully, she made her way back to her bedroom, then from there to her bathroom. It lay where it had fallen, in a long, silver curlique on the counter:
A single, silver mane-hair.
She had done nothing else that day--nothing except comb every inch of her body, allowing herself to breathe only after she had assured herself that it was a fluke. A mistake. A meaningless trick of biology.
And yet, she knew not what to do with the hair. To throw it away felt like a surrender, an acknowledgement of whatever hold age might have on her. So, she had kept it, buried in her chest of drawers under a pile of old t-shirts.
And there it lay--until it was joined, six weeks later, by a second hair. And a third a month after that. Soon, there were too many hairs to keep in the drawer, and so she purchased the jar. The jar she filled with silvery wisps, coiled like wires. The jar that, by now, was nearly half full, and was filling ever faster.
And soon, she could no longer deny it. She could no longer dismiss the unevenness around the edges of her mouth as laugh lines, nor the roughness at the corner of her eyes as crow’s feet. And she could no longer convince herself that the blooming pain in her joints was merely the result of a bump she hadn’t noticed or a scrape she had missed.
Celestia, for the first time in her long, long life, was growing old.
She did not consider herself a coward. She never had. But that thought alone shook her to her very core. She was dying--slowly, one day at a time, just like all the other ponies--but dying all the same. And the coming day where there would be no more tomorrows filled her with a very personal, very selfish fear--the fear of what lay Beyond.
But her fear was not so great that it drove her daughter from her mind. Someday--someday sooner than either of them could hope--the one constant in Luster’s life would be torn away from her. And her daughter would be left alone in the world, truly alone, for the first time in her life.
Luster’s future was provided for. It had been for some time. Celestia could lavish any luxury she desired upon her daughter, and she would still become one of the most eligible mares in Equestria the moment her mother died. But there was more to life than money. And it was all that Celestia could hope that her student--the one who, in the end, she had failed so utterly--would not fail her in this one, final task she would ask of her.
And that fear was enough to keep her awake until the sun that had once been hers bathed the room in rosy gold, and the tiny life beside her began to stir.
It had been a foregone conclusion, almost from the beginning: Luster Dawn would attend the School of Friendship. At first, it had been a matter of preference. Luster deserved the best, after all, and Celestia would do all she could to ensure she got it. But, all too soon, it became clear that she, whose mother had been so insistent her own pupil learned the arts of friendship, needed those same lessons even more.
The problems started when she was young. In the summer, Celestia would take Luster to the playground, and in the winter, she would take her to go sledding--places where there were always other little ones around. At first, Celestia thought Luster’s desire to hide behind her mother’s legs was simple shyness, and had urged her to go play. And she always went, eventually, trundling off to find some new colts and fillies to spend the afternoon with, as her mother carefully watched her from the sidelines.
But something had gone wrong. Celestia had never entirely been sure what, but she had her guesses. Chief among them was that Luster had inherited some small fragment of her mother’s capacity for love. And so, as Luster stumbled through the snow and blew on dandelion puffs with the other little ones, she opened her heart to them. Formed connections. Formed friendships. Formed bonds.
But that was the trouble with living in a ski town: no one stayed for long. So, the next time Celestia took her to the playground or to the sledding hill, Luster would look around eagerly for her new best friends--only to discover that they, too, had left. And that was the thing about love: the bigger your heart, the more it hurt when it broke. To her everlasting shame, it took Celestia far too long to notice what was happening. Despite Luster’s growing reluctance, Celestia still took her out, still urged her to make friends and play. And Luster would, of course. She was a good little filly like that. But each time, it took more and more urging on Celestia’s part to drag her daughter out from her shell.
And, before Celestia even realized it, Luster had withdrawn into herself. She had learned that other ponies could not be counted on, and so, she had resolved to never do so again. Instead, she built a wall around her heart, one that she would allow only her mother and a choice few adults to pass. And there, safe from pain and disappointment, she became a contented little hermit, happy to live her life alone, insulated from anyone else who would abandon her.
Celestia had tried to fix things. Had finally found a pegasus family with two small children, just a few minutes up the road. But when Celestia introduced Luster to Robin and Cardinal, she held herself back. When Robin invited her to play hide-and-seek, and when Cardinal had offered her a cookie, she stayed silent, examining their faces carefully. And Celestia saw the question in her eyes, the question that had haunted her days and plagued her nightmares ever since:
How long until you, too,leave me behind?
It would have almost been impressive, were it not so worrisome. Most ponies still had the old herd instincts, and craved the society of others. Even Twilight, one of the most socially backward ponies Celestia had ever met, had known enough to be embarrassed when she committed a faux pas. But Luster, it seemed, lacked even that awareness. It was said that no mare could be an island--but Luster was determined to give the old wisdom a run for its money.
It was one of the many worries that kept Celestia up at night--if she, in trying to protect her daughter, had broken her instead. Was Luster simply born a recluse? Or had Celestia forced her into it, by trapping her in a town so small that it barely deserved the name?
She reminded herself--bitterly--that there were a few benefits to their situation. For one, Luster’s grades were the top of her class in every subject, every time. She would have been able to attend any university she pleased, even if she weren’t the only heiress of an ex-Princess. But that was cold comfort to her mother, who knew that, one day soon, the only pony who had been there for her entire life--the one pony she had allowed herself to trust, wholly and completely--would abandon her, too.
And so, as soon as she was old enough, Celestia submitted an application for Luster to attend the School of Friendship. Luster readily agreed, of course--the prospect of learning at the hooves of ponies who appeared in so many of her books was a dream come true for her. She wrinkled her nose at the name--what charms could the School of Friendship hold for her, after all?--but Celestia did her best to emphasize the other benefits.
However, on the forms, she made it clear that her daughter, as much as it hurt to admit it, was in desperate need of remedial friendship instruction. That she needed someone to teach her, to show her that there was value in forming bonds with other beings, even if those bonds were as brief and fragile as spider-silk. She needed to know that there were others to whom she could go for comfort and support, before her mother left her truly alone.
Celestia knew that Luster needed that sort of help. She needed it so badly that she very nearly signed the paperwork using her own name. To deny the ex-Princess something she desired so badly would have practically been a crime--had been a crime, in fact, once upon a time. But she resisted the temptation, in the end. After all, if Luster could only succeed by relying on her mother’s reputation, what would she do when her mother was no longer there for her?
And so, she deployed another one of her pseudonyms, and signed the papers as Heliotrope. She had chosen the name with the utmost care. Most would read the name, recognize it as a type of flower, and assume that she was an earth pony with an especially-striking purple coat. But the name was actually an old one, taken from ancient Ponish. Sun-Turner, it meant. Celestia had promised herself she would not buy a spot for her daughter with the power of her own name, and had resisted the temptation to do so. But even so, the name was a cry for help: a cipher that, she hoped against hope, her student would see and understand.
Eight agonizing weeks passed before Celestia received a reply--and, when it came, she very nearly wept aloud. Luster had been accepted to the School of Friendship. Moreover, it seemed, Princess Twilight had taken a special interest in the filly. It was not necessarily unusual for the Princess to take a personal pupil, but, when she did, she usually insisted they live with her in the Palace at Canterlot. But this time, she had made an exception: Luster would attend the School of Friendship as planned, but she and the Princess would meet whenever the Royal schedule allowed to review her progress. A place at the School of Friendship and the personal attention of the Princess herself? That was an honor that even Luster could not fail to recognize.
Celestia had searched the papers three times over, and even pulled the envelope apart at the seams. Finally, she was forced to admit that, despite her dearest hopes and her deepest fears, there were no personal remarks, no hidden messages, no counter-ciphers to indicate that someone had read and understood her puzzle. She was forced to ponder, then, whether Luster had drawn the attention of the Princess by her own merits, or whether Twilight had known. Whether she had been waiting for fourteen years for the name of Luster Dawn to cross her desk. Yet another worry for Celestia’s late-night wonderings.
Perhaps that had been part of her plan, after all. The one tiny little thorn of revenge that a pupil had allowed herself to inflict on her teacher.
The train whistle blew, long and loud, in the cold, still air.
“Mom,” Luster said finally, her voice slightly muffled. “Mom, I gotta go.”
Celestia opened her eyes, and realized that some of the other ponies were staring. She was standing there on the train platform, hugging her daughter--and had been so for several minutes now.
Celestia lit her horn, opened her arms, and slowly lowered Luster to the platform. “Sorry,” she muttered.
“It’s okay,” Luster said, turning away to pick up her trunk, heavy with fresh school supplies, what was left of her Hearth’s Warming treats, and another two dozen chocolate chip cookies from Celestia herself, still warm from the oven.
As Celestia watched her daughter double-check that she had her new earmuffs in her pocket, she felt her lower lip begin to tremble. And there was that old fear again--here she was, watching the pony she loved most in the world, loved more than life itself, leaving her again for another six months. And who was to say if she would ever see her daughter again? Oh, she trusted the Equestrian Rail system implicitly--but Celestia would add far too many gray hairs to the jar before she returned…
“I think that’s everything,” Luster muttered to herself. She looked up at her mom and smiled. “Another hug?” she asked. “A quick one, though.”
Celestia bent down, and Luster reared up on her hind legs and wrapped her arms around her neck. Celestia put one arm around her and drew her close—
And suddenly, Luster spoke.
“Just send her a letter already,” she whispered into her mother’s ear.
Celestia froze. Slowly, she pulled away from her daughter’s grasp, just enough to look her in the eye.
“Send who a letter?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.
Luster blew a strand of mane out of her eyes. “The Princess,” she said. “She misses you, you know. She asks me about my mom a lot, though I play dumb, like I promised.”
Celestia nodded numbly.
“So just send her a letter,” Luster insisted. “She misses you, and you miss her. Just get it over with, already.”
That was another benefit of Luster’s social awkwardness, apparently. She had no concept of her own social standing, and thus, had no fear of offending others by getting straight to the point.
The whistle blew again, sharp and urgent, and both Luster and Celestia looked up.
“All aboard!” called the conductor, prompting a new flurry of panic among the ponies gathered on the platform. Luster rolled her eyes, then turned back to Celestia.
“Just write her, okay?” Luster said hurriedly. “Promise me? It’ll make you both feel better… and…” she shrugged. “Life’s too short to wait so long.”
Celestia’s gut turned to ice.
“Well… not for you, anyways,” Luster added, chuckling to herself.
And then, she was gone--nothing more than a flash of red-gold tail disappearing into a train car, followed closely by a trunk heavy with signs of her mothers’ love.
Celestia blinked, then ran after her. But the door slid shut before she could reach it. And, with a mighty blast from the whistle, the train lurched forward.
Celestia scanned the windows frantically, searching for her daughter, but the glare from the winter sun blinded her. Still, she turned and chased after the car, hoping against hope that Luster would somehow see her, see her and leap free from the train and come home again, home where she could care for her, just the two of them, mother and daughter—
The train was picking up speed, faster and faster--and suddenly, Celestia ran out of platform. She stumbled into the snow, nearly fell, and, after a few precarious seconds, resumed her chase. She hadn’t even said Goodbye, not properly--and that might have been her last opportunity to say it at all. She didn’t plan on kicking the bucket before Luster returned for the summer, but who was to say? And her jar was filling faster and faster…
As the train began to climb the hill out of their little valley, Celestia’s desperate gallop slowed to a trot, then a walk, until finally, she stopped moving altogether. She lifted an arm and waved at the train, but it was already too late--even if Luster finally had looked out the window, her mother would have simply been a speck of white-on-white, lost against the snow…
She stood there until the last of the train cars had vanished from view--stood there until, she imagined, the train had climbed the next peak, and the next one after that, and stood no chance of returning until its appointed time. And still she stood there, waving, a lump in her throat and a chill in her bones that had nothing to do with the snow.
Finally, when even she had to admit the effort was futile, Celestia retraced her steps back to the little town of Bobsled. She stopped at Filbert and Hazel’s for lunch, though her sandwich sat before her for nearly an hour before she could admit to herself that she simply wasn’t hungry.
And so, Celestia made her slow, winding way home, returning to the cold and lonely house that, just a few short hours before, had been a home full of light and warmth. She let herself in the front door and took off her parka, which she let drop lifelessly to the floor.
Celestia walked to the living room and shot a spark from her horn at the fireplace, making it blaze into life. She took her seat in the armchair and stared deep into the flames.
Celestia watched the fire burn down to embers, watched until the sun had set and the moon started to rise. Then, without a word, she stood and walked towards her kitchen table. As she moved, she lit her horn, and a small roll of parchment, a fresh quill, and a bottle of ink began to trail after her. She sat at the head of the table, then used her magic to smooth out the parchment in front of her, uncap the bottle of ink, and dip the quill inside. With her glow, she picked up the quill--set it back in the bottle--picked it up again--and set it down again.
She stared at the blank expanse of parchment before her--so small it had seemed, just a few moments ago!--and swallowed.
Finally, after several minutes, she lit her horn again, picked up the quill, and began to write.
Dear Twilight, she began, How are you? I know it’s been a while…
