One of Life's Great Mysteries
Celestia. Equestrian Princess. Alicorn of the Sun. Tutor for Twilight Sparkle. Sister to Luna. Wise and respected leader of ponykind. She sits upon her throne; majestic, beautiful, unaging. Her eyes look onwards, unblinking. The mare is completely stationary. Her figure is something to behold. Glorious and two dimensional. More two dimensional than anypony else. Actually two dimensional. A breeze comes in through the window and the cardboard cutout topples.
Celestia is a lie. And, knowing that fact, you should then come to the conclusion that all the baked and often iced confectionary she is said to eat is also a lie. The confectionary is a lie. But, Celestia is more important than the fictionality of her diet.
I can’t tell you why she is a lie. Perhaps Celestia died at the hands/claws/hooves of a previous enemy. She sure supposedly had a few of them in the past. Or maybe, she and all of Equestria are the wondrous dream of some unnamed human. I want to say Lauren. It feels like she’d be a Lauren.
What I can tell you, however, is that somepony has been working hard to keep up the ruse. The question is: Who?
Is it Luna?
The Princess in question was lying in her bed, slowly waking up. The day was soon to end, and the Sun was due to set in the hour. This would call for Luna’s Moon. The thought of that place, where she had been imprisoned for a thousand years… it brought a secret smile to Luna’s face.
Oh what fun she had had up there. The Nightmare that had controlled Luna had decided spend the thousand years holidaying in a galaxy far, far away. To occupy herself, Luna had constructed a utopian city inside the moon. She’d even gone so far as to magically create a whole civilisation. The magic required daily to maintain it was why Luna barely got out and about. She slept a lot. It is clear she is not behind the false Celestia.
In fact, right that moment, Luna began to wonder what she and Celestia would discuss over breakfast that evening. It was genuine wonder, with no knowledge of her sister’s falsehood. As always, Luna was in the dark. Hard not to be with her sleep pattern.
So, if not Luna, who else? Who could pull off such a stunt? Surely it would require great power and control over magic to maintain the Alicorn’s role. That certainly rules out any Pegasi or Earth Ponies; maybe even Unicorns!
What about Cadence?
The Alicorn of Love and Princess of the Crystal Empire was in her bedroom. Somepony else was there with her. Her beloved husband and Prince, Shining Armour, was making repetitive motions of some kind on top of… Oh… erm… Let’s leave those two be… Now that I think about it, she isn’t actually powerful enough to raise the Sun.
With Cadence off the suspect list, there’s only one more Alicorn left: Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Magic.
Twilight Sparkle could quite easily perform both Luna and Celestia’s daily rituals. it must be her, right? But no, she’s too young. But wait! The time spell! She could have travelled back in time and taken Celestia’s place! GENIUS! How to prove it though…
Bah, the only way to prove it is by disproving every other possibility! Onwards!
Let’s see…
Discord could be behind it all. It is all very chaotic, making no sense with how he would have ended up trapping himself in stone through Celestia. Well, now we have two quite strong possibilities.
Chrysalis is a third possibility. The amount of love Celestia gets, she’d be unstoppable. Sure there’s that time with the two being in the same place, but with Changelings, anything’s possible when it comes down to identities, as long as it’s just the visuals. Damn, this is getting harder to figure out, isn’t it?
Sombra? Definitely not. He’s actually evil, and wouldn’t waste his time being a goodie goodie two shoes. At least he’s discountable.
What’s left? Everypony and everybody else in Equestria; easy to disprove but so many of them. Oh no! I forgot Starswirl the Bearded! He could secretly not be dead! He is legenda….
And so the narrator went on and on about every single living and nonliving thing in Equestria. I, your second and more trustworthy narrator, Narrator 2, suggest we leave Narrator 1 be. Want to kill some time and see what the crusaders are up to? Whatever your answer, that’s what we’re doing.
With the day coming to an end, the crusaders are saying their goodbyes and setting off for their respective homes. Sweetie Belle skipped and hummed her way to the Boutique.
Not Sweetie Belle. Magic isn’t her thing. No, she’s a music pony.
Apple Bloom began to gallop when she caught a whiff of that night’s evening meal. Delish!
Apple Blooms an Earth Pony. End of story.
And Scootaloo… well… she, er…
Scoots is a Pegasus, so that’s that too.
What IS she doing? Last I checked, nopony but Zecora lived in Everfree…
I know there’s all that mystery around her family and stuff, but again, she’s a Pegasus.
The fact she just trotted past Zecora’s hut… and the Zebra was inside… Where’s she off to then? Oh, she’s stopped by a tree. Now Scootaloo is digging up some kind of box. Is that a mechanical horn? It’s glowing! SHE’S GONE!
Huh, there’s a bright light on Celestia’s throne…
Narrator 1! What’s happening?
Somepony teleported in… It’s Scootaloo… What the hay is going on here?
Just narrate the scene properly!
Oh, yeah… AHEM!
Scootaloo placed a box beside her while she levitated the cutout back into position. A quick second spell and the cutout somehow enveloped the filly and there sat Scootaloo. The box from earlier was tucked away.
Another flash of light, and Luna stood before her ‘sister’. With but a shared look, the pair of Alicorns enacted the daily Dusk ritual. Next, Luna walked next door where food was being prepared, awaiting Celestia to finish off whatever thing she was doing. ‘Celestia’ normally required a little extra time after Dusk; in private.
Scootaloo performed some checks to assure the illusion was safe. All of sudden, straight after nodding to herself, Scootaloo was herself. While trying to understand what had happened, a letter from Spike arrived. It read that Twilight had gone crazy claiming Celestia didn’t exist because of some fancy maths, and something about Rainbow Dash being an idiot.
An exasperated sigh from Scootaloo almost knocked over the cutout, reminding the filly to reinstate the illusion.
Once back in her disguise, Scootaloo muttered, “Damn Twilight and her mathematical nonsense. That’s the 5th time this month. All those memory spells I keep having to use are sure to cause permanent brain damage… guess that explains her state way back when…”
Scootaloo had a flashback which explained everything. How she came to fake being Celestia. Why she has a not yet invented artificial horn. Why Celestia doesn’t exist, even though we’ve already guessed the cause. The whole shebang. Even the Meaning of Life.
This fic was inspired by a comic by labba94, titled Twilight’s Theorem
Author's Note
What's the betting at least one of you counted the words in the paragraphs? Sorry for tricking you with the first paragraph being another 69 only to scrap it straight after... not MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! But in all seriousness, count the last paragraph too. I say that only because I doubt you will have noticed otherwise... I get bored when writing sometimes... so I have fun with numbers while I'm at it.
