A Day Like Any Other
By Pearple Prose
‘When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive...’
That was the first thought that ran through Celestia’s head as her heavenly charge pulled her from her dreamless slumber.
She wasn’t sure which philosopher came up with that quote, though whether this unsurety was borne from ignorance or forgetfulness was up for debate. The Sun Goddess had encountered, greeted, chatted, and shared tea with countless thinkers of many different races, enough names and faces that even Celestia’s fathomless mind reduced them to a smudge of fragmented conversations and shattered masks.
But that one piece of wisdom always stuck with her.
‘...To breathe...’
Maybe this would be the morning, she mused with a sliver of hollow hope.
The Princess took a deep breath of the morning air. Nope. Same as always. No new scent or taste, just the smell of a castle containing only cutthroat nobles and broken dreams.
Sighing almost inaudibly, the alabaster alicorn shifted her divine bulk and rolled out of her decadent bed, still unaccountably graceful in a way that awed onlookers and reverent flank-kissers alike.
Celestia grumbled, just for the sake of grumbling, yawned, despite not being sleepy in the slightest, and donned her royal vestments. Before pulling on the magnificent peytral , she narrowed her eyes and searched it for imperfections. Of which there were none, and never would be; she had infused all her golden garments with pure sunlight, thus they would always shine brighter than any earthen material. Despite this, she took false satisfaction in nodding satisfactorily at the symbols of her office.
The monarch walked to her balcony and held her fluted ivory horn up to the heavens, preparing to push the moon down below the horizon. She instinctively shut her eyes; again, not because she needed to. The imprint of a mare on the lunar disc was a sight she had subconsciously avoided for centuries, and such habits were hard to break when you were driven mostly by muscle memory.
With a warm golden glow, Celestia reached out with her magic and took the moon into her metaphysical grasp. When she was certain she had a good grip, she tapped her divine spark, willing the argent satellite to move down below the horizon. The moon, as usual, resisted her efforts, then almost immediately gave, slowly sinking out of sight below the horizon.
Celestia released the moon, along with a breath she was unaware she had been holding. She wasn’t taxed at all. After all, she had performed the same daily ritual for nearly a thousand years, and so the necessary actions had been reduced to simple instinct.
Turning towards her sun, she simply enforced her will upon the colossal star. When it stubbornly refused to rise, she gave it a sharp tug and a quick telekinetic wake-up slap to get the celestial engine chugging along on its daily cycle.
‘...To think...’
Celestia stepped out into the corridor and trotted with her perfected regal trot, making sure to maintain the suitable expression of benevolent detachment. A small, knowing smile mixed with understanding eyes. Or maybe it should be a cheerful smile mixed with enigmatic eyes, just to add a bit of variety? After shifting her facial muscles into a variety near-identical, yet still subtly different expressions, it settled on a furrowed brow and intense gaze. Not by any fault of her own, it was simply her natural look of intense calculation and thought.
Inside her head, the Princess called up her memorised schedule and considered it. Wake up, eat breakfast, sit in Day Court, paperwork, something, more paperwork...
Celestia’s brow furrowed further. There was something missing on her calendar, something she was sure she deemed incredibly important. Unfortunately, her mind just refused to call up the information. Her lips peeled back into a frustrated growl--
And snapped straight back into a mask of serenity as her honour guard swooped in to flank their revered princess. Celestia mentally chided herself for letting her carefully controlled emotions slip out so easily. Her little ponies would be upset if they were to see their beloved leader look anything other than her best. She used to find it rather endearing that they cared for her so.
She hadn’t felt that way for a long time, however. Not for nearly a thousand years.
The Sun Goddess stepped into the dining room and took her seat, armoured entourage fanning out to take their designated positions. Celestia looked down at her plate; eggs, sunny-side up, and a bowl of fresh salad, garnished with sunflowers. She never had the heart to tell the chefs that she hated the yellow plant, no matter how much seasoning you sprinkled on it. The goofy grins she imagined them wearing as they served their beloved leader her, assumed, favourite breakfast was something of a private joke. One that only she got and could only share with herself, of course.
She frowned ever-so-slightly. She got the impression that she was forgetting something again.
No time to dwell on the odd feeling however; it was nearly time for Day Court. She wasn’t sure why ponies still called it that. It wasn’t like there was any other court, not anymore at least.
No. Don’t think about that.
‘...To enjoy...’
The common citizens of Equestria crowded restlessly outside the doors to the throne room, most of them clutching assorted documents and petitions to be torn to pieces by bureaucracy, while Celestia and her assorted advisers stood to attention within. Nodding silently for the doors to open and court to begin, the Princess steeled her resolve in preparation for the onslaught.
The tide of ponies threatened to overwhelm the door guards at first, before a pair of earth ponies stepped forward, bowed reverently, then launched into a tirade regarding the placement of a pear tree relative to their respective properties. Or a fig tree. Celestia had already tuned them out and settled into a routine of looking thoughtful and nodding appropriately.
Court continued like this for some time: ponies would step forward, rant, receive a non-specific assurance designed to placate rather than resolve, then rinse & repeat.
And Celestia hated it. She hated it all. She wanted to cry out that she couldn’t care less that the filly two doors down the street was being a bit noisy when she was hungry. She wanted to rant about the unfairness of an existence that decreed that she would be forced to sit and listen to such relentlessly self-righteous specks of mortality, and then stuff her mouth so full of cake that she couldn’t see straight. A small part of her just wanted a normal conversation with another pony about life, the universe and everything.
Instead, she responded kindly and patiently to every question proposed to her, then took her leave back to her office, where a mountain of paperwork sat on her desk, trampling on her dreams of a pleasant, relaxed day of tea and scones.
In her fortress of solitude, she stared at the putrid pile of papyrus for what seemed like an eternity, remembering the day before when she was staring at a strikingly similar pile. And the day before that. And the day before that.
Celestia slammed her hoof on the desk, letting out a shuddering gasp as the bolt of pain hit her system. Tears threatened to spill out through the cracks in her carefully maintained facade.
What was she doing? Repeating the same mindless tasks, day-after-day? Is that even living? She screamed silently to herself, so focussed on her pain that she almost missed the doors to her office creak open.
“Princess? Are you okay?” A voice squeaked.
Celestia’s eyes snapped up in surprise. Standing half in the doorway was a little lavender unicorn filly, dark-blue mane with violet highlights covering her brow smartly. Celestia couldn’t see the filly’s flank from her position, but she knew that it would be adorned with a purple starburst, signifying an unmatched talent for magic. She knew because this filly had been her personal student as of a few months earlier.
Twilight Sparkle gasped when she saw her mentor’s bruised hoof resting on a cracked wooden desktop. “Princess, your hoof! You’re hu-” She never got to finish her sentence, as a gleaming white alicorn wrapped her up in a huge hug, great white wings circling around to cradle the curious little foal.
“Don’t worry, my little pony. Everything is just fine. Absolutely perfect, in fact.” Leaning back from the hug, Celestia looked Twilight in the eyes and asked in a worried tone. “I’m so sorry, Twilight. I’m afraid I forgot you were returning from your trip today, otherwise I would have had something planned. Can you ever forgive me?”
Twilight’s amethyst eyes widened in shock at the sight of the Princess looking so sad, and she waved her tiny hooves in a placating gesture. “No, no, Princess! I don’t mind at all! I-I just missed my lessons with you. You always make them so fun!”
Princess Celestia hesitated slightly, then her lips curled into a slightly shy, yet genuine, smile. “Thank you, Twilight. I missed you too.” She nuzzled her faithful student, then whispered mischievously into her ears, “How about we go get some cake and ice-cream? Courtesy of the royal chef, of course.”
The look of pure innocent joy on her student’s face threatened to make Celestia’s heart burst.
‘...To love.’
“Princess, you’re crying! Are you sad?”
“No, my little star. I’m just happy to be alive.”
