To Be Pure

by Alleria Windrunner

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life
Length: 1776

Celestia reflects on her life and her title, in the process coming across Luna and her little ponies.

Celestia reflects on her life and her royal title, growing up with Luna and Discord, mentoring Cadence and then Twilight, battling Chrysalis, seeing them ascend, and in the process shaking all of the skeletons out of her closet.

The first in a series of one shots, each one with a different princess or dark entity.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2013-11-15 04:00:03 UTC

To Be Pure

   To my little ponies, the young and old, the mare and the stallion, the pegasus and the unicorn and the earth pony, I am  an immortal goddess. I represent power, order, light, and all that is pure and good for my country. I am seen as a benevolent ruler, my stone mask made of foam so they can't see just how much pain, happiness, loss, blood, sweat, tears, and laughter are etched into it.

   I remember long ago like it was yesterday. My mother the creator, the all mighty and all seeing Lauren Faust, had created me and my sister from all sorts of things. When she'd tell us bedtime stories, me and Luna, she would often tell us of her 'instant daughter' recipe. Mine, she'd say, was a cup of light, a few spoonfuls of cloud, a sprinkle of kindness, and an ounce of gentleness rolled into a dough made of sweetness and courage.

   Looking back, it was little Lulu who got the courage part. The Nightmare Moon incident is not as everypony thinks it is. You see, it started with a bitter clash, not me ignoring my sister. Rather, I paid too much attention to her and her lifestyle, and eventually I tried to run her life. So she, going through a particularly nasty phase of independence, ran off into the Everfree.

   I ended up finding her, but the damage had already been done. She was speaking with spirits, the evil spirits of the shadows that mother had tols us never to look at, much less talk to. But here my little sister was, calmly facing down half  a dozen of them without the smallest hint of fear or anger. Just curiosity and determination. So I hid behind a rock and listened in.

   She told them about what'd been happening. They asked her if she wanted them to destroy me. My eyes filled with tears. Had I really driven her so far that she'd jump to having me be torn apart by ghosts? But she told them no. She just said that she needed their help garnering my respect. They agreed, but on three conditions.

   As they haggled out these conditions, my sister and those spirits, I crept away into the underbrush and fled back to the castle. After that night, my darling little sister began to change. First it was just her attitude, she became confident and brave. I was insanely jealous. She was everything that I wanted to be. Then it was her appearance. She shot up a few inches in height, the tip of her horn touching the top of my ear. Her mane and tail became ethereal purple mists that shimmered and flowed in a nonexistent wind like my own did, and my jealousy ramped up steadily from then on.

   The only thing I had left to separate me from Luna was that I was the older sister, and as such next in line for the throne. But even that was snatched away as quickly as it came to my mind, when we were about seven we'd made a blood pact under the solar eclipse that we'd rule together, for as long as time would let us.

   I slowly became a loner. I got moody and dark in attitude, and my pink mane started going gray. Slowly at first, but picking up momentum until it was completely gray, not a trace of rose left. My coat darkened as well, and I began to hide my face. I didn't leave the castle for two years, during which Luna grew even more beautiful and I grew even more disgusted with myself.

   All of it came to a screeching halt the night I attempted to usurp my mother's throne. I'd grown angry and stormed into the throne room, demanding what was rightfully mine. For the first time in two years my mane was colorful once again, it blazed with all kinds of reds and oranges and yellows as it crackled off my neck and hindquarters.

   A battle ensued. I took out the guards and fought my mother savagely, until finally she could take no more and summoned the most powerful artifacts I have ever known in my entire life: the Elements of Harmony. Using their power, she took careful aim and blasted a concentrated beam of rainbow light at me, intent on banishing me...or worse.

   But it never came into contact with me. Luna took the bolt right in her chest, where it grew and swirled around her. It became a cyclone of rainbow lights, blinding me and I'm sure my mother as well. I didn't know what would happen to my sister in the tube of light, but I did know that the consequences of breaking a blood pact were dire. And they could, and most likely would, come crashing down upon my horn any minute now.

   But as my mother began to dissolve in time with the now empty tunnel of light that had taken Luna from me, a construct of my own foolishness, I suddenly knew: my mother had fired the beam. My mother had missed. Therefore, she had broken the pact, for I had never done anything to Luna directly and mother had shot her in the chest.

   Mother's essence scattered to the stars, and Luna was imprisoned in the moon. No wonder time twisted her into Nightmare Moon, but that is another story, for another time.

   Another thing that I must get off my chest: my relationship with Discord. The story in incorrect there too. Several years after Luna was banished to the moon and I'd taken up my mother's title, we met in a cherry tree grove. We had apparently been using the same tree for months, but never noticed each other coming and going. So we hit it off, talking and chatting. The another creature wandered into the grove, cold and lost and hungry. I was originally repulsed by her appearance, but being with Discord had helped me gain a new perspective on the deceiving tricks appearances could pull.

   We asked her what her name was and gave her what was left of our picnic, but oddly, she refused. She explained that her name was Larva and that she was a changeling, a shapeshifting creature that fed off of love. So we gave her what love we had, and when she was done feeding from our emotions she thanked us.

   Our little gang met up in that grove time and time again, but as time passed, we grew distant. For me, I became more wrapped up in my duties and had less time to see my friends. Discord had met a unicorn colt with a strange horn named Somber Note, and they spent most of their time together causing a ruckus and doing coltish things. As for Larva, I can't really tell you, because she just stopped showing up at the cherry tree when me and Discord actually had the time to get together.

   Later I was shocked by Discord's attempt to take over my kingdom. I tearfully pleaded with him to rule beside me, but he refused. He wanted sole control, and he was going to get it or die trying. So, sobbing, I summoned the Elements, looked away, and fired. I looked the other way, tears streaming down my face, for several minutes.

   When I looked back, my Discord was not there. Instead there was a piece of rock molded in his image. Disgusted by his actions and my own, I ordered the staue to be placed in a hedge maze, at the very center where very few ponies would ever see it.

   Sombra, enraged by the loss of his friend and my apparent betrayal to him, gathered followers and attempted to seize control of the governement of the Crystal Empire. He succeeded and named himself King Sombra, a faint shadow of his former self, filled by hate and loss.

   Smirking bitterly at the irony, I put him to the torch of the Elements as well, burning away his body and trapping his soul in the farthest reaches of the icy north. After that I refused to touch the Elements again for years on end.

   The last contact I can ever recall having with Larva before she jacked her daughter's wedding was when she left said daughter on my doorstep. A small bundle wrapped in rags and gleaming black chitin, she was a small version of her mother. As I listened to the beat of her heart, I knew what to name her.

   Cadence grew quickly, in the form of a small pink alicorn with purple-tinged wing feathers. When the Gryphon ambassador and his wife were going through a tough spot while visiting, the inquisitive young babysitter became a marraige counselor, and put the couple back on track. She earned her mark this way, and I couldn't have been any more proud if I'd tried.

   Twilight was like Cadence in many ways: she was tencaious, she was caring, she was powerful, and her magical potential was off the charts that mapped such things. When she destroyed half my school that was the icing on the cake.

   But as time went on, I saw her becoming myself: sticking to herself, her books, her family, and, I'm proud to admit, me. She sequestered herself and her books away from all contact, but I knew that she needed friends. Five of them, to be exact. The Element of Magic came alive when it was near her, glowing with a purple light that could only meant one thing: it had found, and chosen, it's rightful bearer.

   And bear she did. Saving Luna, defeating Discord a second time, overpowering Sombra, and freeing Cadence so Cadence could defeat Chrysalis. She did that and more, as evidenced by her reports to me on a more or less weekly basis.

   But what I shall end this string of confessions and truths on is a sentence that still haunts me today, spoken my a dear friend of mine who chose a dark path: "Larva scattered to the four winds ahen she was kicked aside like abroken toy and forced to wander, hungry and alone, until she found a new friend: power.'

   This paper bears all that previously burdened my heart and soul, my body and my mind. It feels as if a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders...I think I shall go spend some time with my sister.

—Princess Celestia of Equestria