Schism

Chapters

Intro
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
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Intro

Schism
10/19/2011
Sev
sev.jano@gmail.com

“What do you see when you look out there?”

“Hmm?”

Princess Celestia walked softly across the ornate stone floor of the palace. Beautiful filigree inlaid by master unicorn craftsponies centuries earlier glinted in the pale moonlight, catching her crisp white fur in frost-like reflection against the darker stone in which it was placed. It was spotless; the palace never stayed dirty for long. If the small legion of proud Earthponies that kept the grounds in order didn't catch something, subtle enchantments placed in the stones themselves would tidy any errant speck. There were days when Celestia longed for a mud puddle.

“Out there,” Celestia continued, arriving just behind the smaller, darker silhouette of her sister. Her voice was gentle and inquisitive. “You stand here every night and look out across Equestria, but I'm certain you don't see the same land I do.”

“There's been a lot of progress in a thousand years, sister”

“You know thats not what I mean.”

Princess Luna sighed, her wingtips drooping slightly, before looking back out over the moon-soaked landscape. Ponyville glinted in the distance, a tiny speck of light in the night, and she held her gaze on it momentarily. It wasn’t what was on her mind, but it provided a spot of focus, so she took it for what it was worth. Celestia stepped up beside her, following her eyes to the candles in the dark many miles away.

“It seems someone is up and enjoying your scenery.”

Luna nodded after a moment, realizing she hadn’t averted her gaze from the town in the distance. “It'l go out soon,” she said, “I see AppleJack sometimes, wandering in the orchard. Sometimes the dress shop stays lit up until one, two in the morning.”

Celestia smiled, “You can tell that much from here?” Luna chuckled softly, “I see what the Moon sees, thats all. Always have.”

Celestia's smile faded a little, and she draped her wing over the smaller pony. “You never stopped watching, did you.” she said, a hint of sympathy in her voice. It was more of a statement than a question, and Luna shook her head.

“Watching isn't the same as seeing. Nightmare Moon watched Equestria forget her for 1000 years. Now shes gone, and I'm here, and I'm trying to see, instead of watch.”
The pair were silent for a moment, eyes outward toward the night. Celestia spoke again when the wind picked up, tossing the shimmering colors of her mane out to her sides.

“What do you see when you look out there?”

The final lights in Ponyville blinked out, and left the world outside the palace balcony dark and quiet until the morning rays would bring Equestria to life once more. Everypony was in their bed by now, and only the owls graced the skies. “I see a thousand years of progress,” Luna replied, turning back for the palace interior, “and nothing has changed.”

Chapter One

Twilight Sparkle eyed the overturned applecart in the gully with incredulity. “How in Equestria did you manage to pull that off?” she asked the larger, yellow mare beside her. Applejack chuckled nervously. “Thaaats a long story, sugercube. The moral of it is a lot shorter.”

“What's the moral?”

“Dont be practicing rope tricks while yer' tugging a cart full'of apples alongside a 30 foot drop”.

“Good moral,” Twilight said, chuckling. “you're lucky you didn't get hurt, AJ. Don't DO stuff like that! Ponies don't usually come down this trail unless they've got some pressing reason to. If you'd fallen down with the cart, we might not have found you for hours.”

AppleJack waved a hoof dismissively. “Ah know, Ah know. Its just the start o' Winter Rodeo is comin' up soon an ah wanted to get in all the extra practice ah could.” she sighed, “now ah got this mess tah sort out instead. Even if you can help me move the thing, its still quite rightly busted, to say nuthin' of the apples.” The workhorse turned a circle and grunts, gazing skyward as though hoping to find salvation in the clouds somewhere. “Big Macintosh is gunna skin me alive an' use my cutiemark for a wall decoration when he finds out the whole day's harvest is half crushed under kindling.”

Twilight smiled and nudged her friend. “Dont worry about it. I cant do much about the apples, but I can at least get your cart back on the road. Mending spells are my speciality!” Applejack raised a brow and smirked. “Aren't all spells your speciality?” Twilight chuckles, slightly embarrassed. “Well, maybe most, but I mean it. Fixing things is...comforting. You can really tell when you've gotten it right, you know? I like that.”

Twilight braced herself on the side of the ditch and spread her aura out around her, sinking tendrils of light into the dirt for stability. Her horn shimmered, and radiant energy rippled off its surface, convalescing around the fractured form of the cart below. She grit her teeth and pushed her head upward, and with a creak and a moan, the cart lifted from the ground. Applejack gave a little whistle as Twilight guided the wreck to the road and set it down, panting gently. “Never fails to amaze me, sugercube. Ah know exxxacctly how much that thing weighs. Hard enough to pull with wheels under it, let alone in big fractured chunks.” Twilight laughed, “Thanks, but levitation isn't really a...graceful spell. Its not something I can really be proud of, magically. Its kinda like...like pulling a big heavy object up a rope with a pulley, right? It might be hard, it might take a while, but anypony can do it as long as they have the rope, the pulley, and a place to tug. Levitation spells can lift more, with less work, but its still just brute magical force.” Applejack snorted, “That may be, but if it gets the job done, ah ain't complaining.”

Twilight fused the first wooden axel back together and situated it in place as AppleJack came back up the side of the dirt slide. She'd insisted on collecting the remaining pieces herself, wanting to be of some use while Twilight affected repairs. Applejack could've fixed the cart herself given time and tools, but she had neither, and considering she was already looking at a world of hurt for losing the day's harvest, letting Twilight at least repair the cart without visible signs of damage seemed the wisest course of action. “What was it ya were sayin' earlier? About 'knowin' when you've gotten it right'?” she asked, after dropping off part of a wheel.

Twilight moved on to the next trouble spot, systematically repairing as she moved around the cart. “When you start a project, like um..like building a barn. You usually have a plan, right?”

“Yeah, always. Measure twice, buck once, they say.”

“Well you do in magic too, only...” Twilight paused, searching for words, “only the plan doesn’t always have all the details. Any time you start something in magic, you have to make sure you've laid out a way to stop it after its begun. It doesn’t just turn off on its own. With construction and repair magic, like this, its really direct. I begin the mend, I stop the mend, the wood goes where I direct it to. But with some magic its so complex that you cant really know if your countermeasures are going to work the way you expect them to. Does that make sense?”

“Nope.”

“Right,” Twilight made a face, trying a different approach. “Look at it this way, remember when I uh...had that little...accident when I enchanted my doll and made half of Ponyville go insane trying to chase it?” “HA, yeah,” Applejack replied with a humored snort. “Well, that was because when I cast that spell, I didn't consider how to cancel it. I wasn’t thinking ahead the way I'm supposed to, and I ended up in a situation where I couldn't get to the doll to remove the enchantment. If I'd had my head on strait that day, I could've built an easier dismissal into the enchantment when I cast it to begin with.” AppleJack snickered, “Or you might've just not done it,”. Twilight sighed and the canvas flap that covered the cart snapped into place. “Well, yeah, or that.”

“So how come Princess Celestia was able the cancel yer enchantment so easy?” AppleJack asked, stepping back as the last few bits of the fractured cart snapped into place.

“She's Princess Celestia,” Twilight replied, smoothing out her now tussled mane. “She raises the Sun in the sky every day with less thought than it took me to raise this wagon. I'm not much of an obstacle to her, plan or no plan. Maybe if I had a few thousand years to practice...and was a lot taller...” The pair of them laughed as Applejack slipped into the newly repaired harness and came up alongside her purple hued friend, who had already begun trotting toward Ponyville.
“TWIIIIIIIIILIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!”

There was something curiously comforting to Twilight about the sound of Spike screaming her name in a state of panic. Familiar, maybe, more than comforting. It wasn't that he was prone to doing it needlessly, in fact Spike was usually more level headed than most of Ponyville's local populous. It was more that suitable need arose more often than one might expect. It meant there was a job to be done, or a goal to be obtained, or a task to complete, and the simple linearity of that fact gave Twilight a sense of purpose she found appealing. Much like the simplicity of restoration magic, there was a joy in having a task with a hard, defined ending.

Of course, in the mean time, there was still a baby dragon running at breakneck speed and yelling in delirium that needed attending to.

“TWIIIIII-”

“SPIKE!” Twilight yelled above him, snapping him to attention. She and Applejack had just gotten into town, still towing the empty, but mercifully repaired, cart behind them. “Whats gotten into you?” Spike had a scroll clutched in one hand, which he was waving frantically. Twilight followed it with her eyes for a moment reflexively before it made her dizzy and she shook her head free of the distraction. Applejack, rather used to diffusing panicking animals, simply grabbed the scroll in her teeth and put a hoof on top of Spike's head until his flailing subsided. It took longer than she expected it to.

Twilight took hold of the scroll with a basic magical gesture and unfurled it in front of herself. “This is Palace parchment...when did this get here?” she asked Spike. He pulled his head free of Applejack's restraint.

“HOURS ago! I've been looking all over town trying to find you! The Princess is on her way!” At Spike's declaration, Twilight's eyes widened, and a shiver of fear shot down her back. Here? To Ponyville? A sudden visit? She wasn't ready!

“I'm not ready!” she exclaimed, and Spike narrowed his eyes.

“Gee, ya think? If you'd told me where you were gooooing-”

“Horsefeathers,” Applejack grunted, “she came out to help me an' ended up spending all afternoon fixing my cart. Aw Twi, I'm real sorry..” Twilight didn't hear Applejack's apology, or she likely would've assured her friend it was no fault of hers. She was too focused on reading the parchment still floating in front of her.

“Dear Twilight Sparkle,

I'm writing to inform you I will be arriving in Ponyville tonight, and hope to call on you at your home in the Library. There are matters of some personal importance I need to resolve, and I believe your insight to be of particular value. I will attempt to not disrupt your routine for long. Until we meet,
-The Princess”

Twilight's eyes lifted from the page just in time to see the last rays of the sun vanish behind the mountains surrounding Ponyville. She was still 20 minutes trot from home. “Go, sugercube. Ah got this,” Applejack insisted, nudging Twilight and snapping her out of her petrified stupor. Twilight couldn't grasp the words immediately to thank her friend, she was still getting over the personal failure of being late to a one to one audience with the princess at her own house, but AppleJack took her stammering to be thanks enough. Twilight grabbed Spike by a spine and tossed him up on her back, charging at full gallop toward home as her words finally caught up with her brain. “ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshwhyTONIGHT?!” she spilled out, banking hard off a lifted stone wall to turn a tight corner. Clearly, athlete or not, watching Rainbow Dash and Applejack's techniques had rubbed off a bit. “If it had been tomorrow or yesterday or even this MORNING I could've gotten the place cleaned up at least! What if she needs my notes? I haven't organized my notes since yesterday! That's an entire day's worth of notes!” she whips the letter out in front of her again, re-reading it frantically. “'Matters of personal importance'?! I've never had to help the princess with anything she found 'personally' important! I mean important to Equestria maybe, but not to her, not directly!”

“Im pretty sure things that are important to Equestria count as being important to the Princess, Twilight,” Spike said evenly. Having now succeeded in his appointed task of informing Twilight of the eminent arrival of the patron deity of Equestria, his panic had deflated and returned him to his general state of mild apathy and objective observation. “This isn't going to be anything you haven't done before.” He stroked his spines as he considered, “Though, I have to admit, that letter does seem a little rushed. She doesn’t usually put that much ink on the quill.” he makes a face, “I can still taste it, blegh.”

Twilight was about to summarily dismiss Spikes reassurance when something clicked in her brain, just as she was rounding Sugercube corner and coming into view of the library tree. She slowed suddenly. Spike blinked. “Twilight, I didn't say you should slow down! You ]are late!” But Twilight was looking at the letter again. Spike was right. Too much ink, the letters were almost shadowed, rather than the thin, whispy ones Princess Celestia usually made.

“Dear Twilight Sparkle...” Twilight read aloud, “That's different too. The princess always begins her letters with 'My dearest student'. Maybe sometimes 'Dearest Twilight', but never 'dear Twilight Sparkle'”. She continued down the page as she walked. “And here, signed 'the princess'. Not 'Princess Celestia', just 'the princess'.”

By now they had arrived just in front of the library. There was one light lit inside, in Twilight's room. Beyond that, it, and most of Ponyville, was dark.

“Do you think its fake?” Spike asks, hopping down, “But...but it came from the palace! I can tell! AND its on official royal parchment!” Twilight looked up at the lit window, and her face hardened. “Spike,” she said firmly, “go to Fluttershy's cottage and stay there until I come for you.” Spike blinked in surprise, “but-” “No buts. Go.” The look on her face told Spike he shouldn't press the issue. But as he turned away, he looked back in concern. “You...don't think its the princess, do you?” he asked.

“I do,” Twilight replied, slowly opening the door, “But Equestria has more than one Princess.”
Twilight's tail disappeared into shadow as the door closed behind her, and Spike felt a chill run down his spines as the first beams of the Moon shown on his scales.

Chapter Two

“Princess Luna.”

Twilight stood at the top of the stairs, facing the similarly colored figure who stood in her “room”, the area her desk and bed were located. When Luna looked up, Twilight bowed her head respectfully. “Please, don't.” Luna said quickly, and Twilight blinked. “Don't bow to me, I mean. Its not...how I do things.” she smiles weakly and chuckles. “I'm sorry about intruding like this, Twilight Sparkle, I know its...sudden. I considered waiting downstairs but...” she paused, looking around, “the chance to see how you live, your personal environment, was a little too good to pass up.” She lifted her eyebrows apologetically, apparently genuinely ashamed of her snooping. Twilight was still stepping gingerly. She was on very, very uncertain ground. She'd heard nothing of, or from, the pegacorn named Luna since shortly after Nightmare Moon's defeat a year ago. Celestia had told her there was 'a great deal of healing to do'.

“Thats alright, um, I'm really sorry about being late, I was helping a friend with a wagon problem. There's no problem, you're always welcome here!” she adds cheerfully, and Luna gives a bit of a sly smile. “Liar.” she says, almost playfully. Twilight was taken aback. “Wha?”

“That last bit,” Luna said, “I'm not 'always welcome here'. You'd be outright foolish to blindly invite me into your home after what happened to you and your friends, and I don't take you for any sort of fool. Believe me, Twilight, I wouldn't hold any reservations against me you have against you.” Her tone wasn’t harsh or demeaning. It was calm and understanding, and tinged with a pith honesty Twilight found herself enamored to.

“I don't have any reservations against you,” Twilight replied, and found herself rather surprised to realize she was telling the truth. Luna was right, she SHOULD have all sorts of deeply rooted distrust for the Mare in the Moon. But the events leading up to that night and the circumstances that lead to Luna's imprisonment were so laden with mystery that Twilight's empirical mind could find no reason to distrust her on principal. Whatever 'Nightmare Moon' was, she wasn’t standing in front of Twilight now. None the less, “but I have an awful lot of questions.”

Luna cocked her head curiously. “You weren't satisfied with the answers my sister gave you?” she asked. Twilight stepped forward, looking off to the side a bit. “I love princess Celestia, but she's been my teacher and mentor for years. There's only so much I can ask her before I begin to feel like im...prying.” Luna nodded at this, and Twilight looked her in the eyes. “With you, though, I feel a bit more entitled. I still dont know exactly what happened a year ago, but I know you owe me after what you put me through.”

Luna smiled and nodded. “I do,” she agreed. “And you are. Entitled, I mean. Its going to take a while though. Will you walk with me? I've been sort of...stuck..at the palace. The public isn't really ready for me to wander around just yet and I...don't like frightening everypony. But I'd like to see the hills out here. I used to love this place.” she chuckled a little, and flicked her wings. “There was no town here when I left. I always thought it would be a nice spot for one.” Twilight lifted a brow, but nodded.

“Yeah...I guess that would be alright. Should I bring anything?”

“Just something to sit on, if we get tired,” luna said, “oh, and uh...if you don't mind...”

“...Yes?”

“...cupcakes?”

Twilight couldn't help but laugh. “You're lucky, I just got a fresh batch today, they're in the kitchen.”
“Are they really?” Luna deadpanned with a teasing smile, “Huh! Imagine that.”

Sugarcube corner never failed to produce cupcakes of the highest caliber. Twilight didn't get back to Canterlott often, but it gave her a sense of pride in her adopted home whenever she bit into a less than fantastic baked treat in the massive city's streets. Canterlott was amazing for many reasons, but there were some things little, friendly towns like Ponyville just plain did better. Having food, especially good food, in her belly gave Twilight a bit more sureness in her step as she hoofed along quietly beside Luna, meandering toward the outskirts of the town and out toward the lakes and mountains. Luna herself caught the moonlight in a soft glow around her, much as Celestia did with the sun, that shimmered and waved in a playful dance with the wind. She was finishing her own treat, and looked just as pleased with it. “No cupcakes on the Moon,” she said with a wink, “its the little things you miss.”

Twilight was about to giggle on default before the statement brought back memories of Nightmare Moon standing triumphantly over the crowd on her first day in Ponyville, having successfully kidnapped and imprisoned a being most ponies took to be untouchable. It made her choke on her laugh a bit, and Luna took notice, casting her eyes downward. “Sorry,” Luna said, though there wasn’t precisely anything to apologize for. The momentary discomfort, perhaps. They crested a hill outside Ponyville and began walking down a trail that would terminate at a cliff overlooking a lake in a mile or two. Twilight knew the trail well enough, but in the dark of the night it looked a great deal different. Luna walked slowly and casually, seemingly unaffected by the darkness. There was a silver shine to her eyes, and Twilight got the impression she could see in the dark a great deal better than Twilight herself could.

“Did Celestia ever tell you about the Schism?” Luna asked after a minute or two. She glanced over at Twilight, her eyes inquisitive. Twilight shook her head, reflexively guarding herself against any misinformation about to be imparted on her. Again, though, Luna didn't give off the feeling of somepony trying to manipulate or corrupt her. If anything, her body language spoke of somepony lonely, and extremely thankful to have a pony nearby to talk to. They walked closely together, and something told Twilight to encourage communication. “What is it?” she asked. “The beginning,” Luna replied.

“You know about Discord,” Luna said, setting the statement as a point of reference, “Who ruled over Equestria before Celestia and myself. It actually wasn’t called 'Equestria' back then, Discord had some other name for it he would change every few days, or weeks, or whenever he thought somepony was trying to plan something on a calendar” she chuckled, the way one would when recalling some ancient mistake that proved embarrassing but inconsequential. “Celestia and I used the elements of harmony to defeat him, seal him in stone, and the world lived happily every after, right? And somewhere between point A and point B I ended up locked in the moon for a thousand years,” she waved that last bit off dismissively, before smiling over at Twilight to see if she'd picked up on the apparent gap in the story. She had. In fact, she had for a very long time, but it just wasn’t something one wrote to Princess Celestia about. “I guess there's more?” she ventured, and luna nodded, continuing to walk idly down the path. “Oh yes.”

“We're not Gods, you know,” Luna explained, continuing her story. “Talented maybe, but thats because we've had an awfully long time to practice. What we are is eternal, and we didn't start that way. There are elements pertaining to a lot of different things. The elements of Harmony, which you know about, the elements of Chaos, which actually make up all the different pieces of Discord's body,” she puffs part of her mane out of her face in exasperation, “that was a fancy trick. It's awfully hard to disarm someone of the source of their power when they build their body out of it.” She clears her throat a little, returning to task, “And the elements of Eternity. Celestia and I share that last one together, and its why we've lasted as long as we have. Much like the elements of Harmony, the elements of Eternity bond to their controllers. They have a physical representation, sure, with us its these crowns,” she looks upward at the dark tiara on her head, “but the essence of the power is within us, just the the spirits of harmony were within you, when you faced Nightmare Moon a year ago.”

“So...Nightmare Moon was some corruption of that power?” Twilight ventured, somewhat hoping for a way to dismiss Luna's actions as 'bad magic'.

Luna shook her head and smiled, “No. Believe me, I wish it were that simple. That does have something to do with it, but I cant lay all the blame at the feet of some magical malfunction.” She looked out to the left, over the rim of the Everfree Forest, as they continued walking. “All elements, even the chaos ones, have a degree of balance to their operation. Points and counter-points, checks and balances, and synergies to allow them to be used in different ways. The elements of Eternity have agelessness in common, but they also embody other features. Patience, Aggression, Empathy, Steadfastness. When Celestia and I first divided the elements, we agreed that she should take Steadfastness and Empathy, and I should take Aggression and Patience.” she waved her hoof a bit, mimicking the movement of a scale. “It was sort of an inbuilt balance we felt would help keep us in order. Celestia was the more aggressive of the pair of us, and-”

“Wait,” Twilight cut in, “Princess Celestia was the more aggressive?” Luna giggled and nodded, her face momentarily filling with pride. “If you could seeeeee her back then. Big sister was my shining savior. Things were a mess, like I mentioned, Discord ruling and all that. Celestia and I were fighting battles and holding our own as best we could for years before the elements of eternity and harmony became involved. She still has the armor she used to wear, hanging up in the palace in some dark, hidden corner chamber no one ever goes into.” Luna shook her head sadly. “When she put that on, I felt hope. It was like salvation was dawning in front of me.” She was quiet for a moment, before meeting Twilight's eyes and continuing. “She was the fighter, and we were worried that if she gained the aggressive aspects of the elements of Eternity, she'd become...tyrannical. Dangerous. Moon knows I needed the help, so the aspect of aggression was imparted to me. To help me control it, I also took Patience, as a way to pick my battles and exercise discretion before mindlessly running into things. Celestia received Empathy and Steadfastness, which we sort of decided were the most valuable aspects of a just ruler.” she smiled at the memory, “there was never really any discussion as to who was going to bring the ponies together once Discord was defeated. We both know she was the one. It was unspoken, and I was content with it.”

“It actually worked. Or it least it would've, had we thought it out a little better.” Luna and Twilight had arrived at the summit of the hill overlooking the lake. It was chilled up there, and Luna pulled the blanket out of Twilight's saddlebag, draping it over the purple pony when a shiver took her. “Warmer?”

“Yes...thank you.” Twilight replied. She'd hardly noticed she was cold. She'd never heard these stories before, but she had SEEN them. Ancient tapestries hanging in the palace in rooms that no pony entered. Once, as a filly, she'd asked Princess Celestia about one of them. The princess had gotten a far off look in her eye, and responded that it was a tale of a legend from long, long ago.

“What went wrong?” Twilight asked.

“Discord did,” Luna replied, “in order for the checks and balances of the elements to function, you need to exercise them. Simply having patience doesn’t mean anything if you don't use it. We were at war, and we didn't have the luxury of waiting around. Emboldened by these new abilities, Celestia and I took the fight to the front lines. She united Ponies under her wings everywhere we went, and the two of us countered everything Discord tried to throw at us. It was a constant struggle, pushing every day to keep him on the defensive. But that was all we could do.” She took a seat on the grass, gazing out at the moonlight on the water. “Discord could warp time and space with a thought, he had absolute mastery over the elements of Chaos. It was all we could do to just...hold him back. The elements of Eternity had evened the playing field, but we needed an edge, or it would never end.”

“The elements of Harmony,” Twilight said softly.

“The elements of Harmony.” Luna replied. From the look on her face, the words didn't taste good in her mouth.

Chapter Three

“It was Celestia that found them,” Luna explained, “collecting old rumors and folklore from the ponies we'd united on our side until she had enough of a hint to go out searching. It took her three years, and while she was gone, I held the lines without her. Constant struggle, constant conflict, constant aggression. I still remember when she came back and saw me for the first time since she'd left. She looked worried, maybe even frightened. But I'd done my job, and she'd done hers. We had the elements, and our united desire to purge Discord from the world was enough to bond the elements of harmony to us.” she snorted, “compared to the years of conflict, the final confrontation against him was...comically short. With harmony and eternity on our side, he didn't really stand a chance. I remember...I remember she had to stop me from shattering the statue when we'd finished. Hold me back. She had already noticed the changes. I couldn't see them at the time, you never really...see these things from the inside. But she did.”

“She wept and apologized for leaving me to fight alone and I..” Luna laughed with exasperation, “I just...couldn't understand what her problem was. We'd won! Discord was gone, and I'd grown and learned and improved in her absence! I could fight my own fights now. BETTER than her. I'd lived up to my idol. I couldn’t...just...figure out..why she wasn't proud of me. All I could see in her eyes was sympathy, and the anger and the rage woke up inside me and began to fester and boil and grow, little bit by little bit, like coals glowing under kindling, just moments from lighting it.” She chewed her lip now, and Twilight looked for fury in her eyes. There was none. Just a sadness so ancient it made Twilight's heart ache. Light teardrops were pooled at the corners of Luna's eyelids, and her body shuddered slightly, but her voice remained firm.

“Equestria was still in Chaos,” she continued, “We had a large number of ponies who'd stood by against Discord, but the vast population was still aimless and un-united. Earth Ponies would quarrel with Pegasus ponies and Unicorns would clam up in private keeps and use magic to lock everyone out. They needed a uniting factor, and Celestia and I set a plan in motion to provide them with one.”

“What did you do?” Twilight asked, in rapt attention.

“We broke the sky,” Luna replied. “With the elements of harmony and and eternity at our disposal we had the power to change the very nature of the cosmos around equestria. So we did.” she chuckles, “looking back at it now it was a little...excessive. But it worked. Celestia and I took over control of the sun and the moon, and shut down the natural functions of all the seasons in Equestria. We took those functions and imbued the ponies with them. The ability to move clouds, to manufacture weather, to bring on Fall with the trample of hooves, all by working collectively.”

“you mean...we didn't always do that?”

Luna grinned, “no, you didn’t. That was us. It was harsh, but we created a situation in which everypony was doomed unless everypony worked together. And it worked. By all rights, it worked beautifully.” Her smile faded. “It wasn’t without cost. Affecting compliance was hard at the beginning. Celestia and I went everywhere, showing ponies how to do things, explaining the system. We were met with...mixed feelings. Celestia, armed with empathy and steadfastness, could understand everypony's misgivings and explain the necessity while not compromising her position. Just as we'd planned, she was a perfect leader. But me...”

“You were angry.” Twilight finished. “Still.”

“Still.” Luna replied. “I tried. I had the best interests of everypony in mind. But I had been fighting too long. I couldn’t find my patience anymore. The aggression outweighed it, and when I couldn't get ponies to comply...I started making them comply. And every time I did the essence of aggression grew bigger and more prominent on my element and I fell deeper and deeper into this spiral of...just...hatred.” she shook her head. “I wasn't me anymore. Even I knew it by then. This thing wasn't me. It had become this sort of life of its own, and it was frightening ponies. I was frightening ponies. Some dark clad monster that would arrive at night and demand compliance while the new order of Equestria was laid out for them all to see. I was a nightmare.” Luna went quiet for a moment. Twilight could hear her heart beating in the stillness of the night, and floating in the back of her head were the cold, fierce eyes of Nightmare Moon. It loomed over the little pony in front of her like a specter. She opened her mouth to speak, but Luna started up again. It was just as well, she had no idea what she was going to say.

“I ran away.” Luna said, “I think it was the last actual choice I, myself, made, before Nightmare Moon became all that I was and locked the me that's here away in my own head. I ran to a place that was dark and cold and secret and I abolished the enchantments there, returning it to the state it was before we changed the seasons. I went there, and I hid, and I watched. Celestia couldn’t find me, not with her attention so needed by Equestria in its infancy. She raised the sun every day, and I raised the moon, so as not to provoke suspicion. As news came to her of the things I'd done, she went into a panic trying to find me, but I still hid, just out of reach, out there.” she nodded off to the side toward the moonlit treetops.

“The Everfree forest..” Twilight gasped, “thats why everything in there is so...strange. Thats how things were.” Luna nodded. “I sat out there and wrestled with myself, day and night, trying to contain this monster that was eating me alive from the inside out. But every time I looked out, all I saw, all Nightmare let me see, was more evidence of just how much there was to detest. Ponies were flocking to Celestia and hiding from the night I'd worked so hard to craft for them. Because thats when the nightmares came. They couldn't see, they had to sleep, and Celestia huddled them close and kept them warm during the day because it was all she could do to keep them going. This new world we'd forged was meant to be ruled by two ponies, and with me missing, she had to pick up the slack. That drove more to her side, and through the hate-tinged lens of my eyes, all I could see was her stabbing me in the back.”

She leaned her head down, resting it on the grass. “By the time she found me, it was already too late. Luna was gone. There was only the Nightmare.” she breathed a sigh. “that was the last time Princess Celestia wore the armor that united Equestria. When she used the elements of Harmony to banish me to the moon, she erected what you all know as the castle of the royal pony sisters on the spot we fought. It's purpose has...drifted...in a thousand years. It was never a castle, nor was it in dedication to any one of us. It was a replica of the temple we both found that contained the elements of eternity. She placed the elements of harmony there instead, where you found them, a thousand years later.”

Twilight realized she hadn’t blinked in minutes. She rubbed her eyes, as though coming out of a trance, and worked her mouth to wet her tongue again. It had been slightly agape for most of Luna's story. “Why...” she began, “Why does no pony know about this? About the fight, and Discord, and the elements of eternity and the real reason you were banished? You didn't..I mean, you did, but it wasn't your fault! You gave everything for Equestria's salvation! You shouldn't be condemned for that!”

Luna smiled, and tears shimmered in her eyes. “Thank you,” she replied, “but it wasn't out of maliciousness that Celestia changed the story. You're right, I did give my all to Equestria. So did she. And to ruin that over petty matters of personal pride would've been terrible. The story was changed in order to edit out any mention of Discord to avoid somehow damaging his stone confinement. It wouldn't take much,” she chuckles and rolls her eyes, “Actually even less than we though, as was recently demonstrated, to break him free again. Had they been included, somepony somewhere, however small or inconsequential, might have gone looking for him, if his existence was public knowledge. We're eternal, if there's anything we have on our side, its time. Celestia altered the story to pin me as the villain and removed the schism from history so that no one would so much as ponder trying to track down the true root of the problem. And as I faded from memory and into legend, Celestia could focus personally on finding a way to...fix me.”

Luna had turned to look at Twilight now, “She gave herself one thousand years to get it right, because she was terrified that if she brought be back and COULDN'T stop me, it would be over. I would destroy her and take over equestria and leave the world in darkness. She couldn't fight me, not anymore, not without the elements, and they didn't work for her now that I'd been banished. To harness them again, she'd need a very, very precise set of circumstances. Six ponies, one in tune with each element, to form a collective power that exceeded both of ours. That sort of energy could disarm nightmare moon without having to shunt her to some cosmic prison or turn her to stone, and in that moment of weakness, Celestia could come in and crush the physical manifestation of the element of Eternity that was bound to me, and let me see clearly for the first time in millennia”.

Twilight's eyes had grown progressively wider as Luna had laid out the ending of her story. A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold of the night had crept up her spine. “You...mean...”

“You think Celestia just planned ahead long enough to send you to Ponyville and let you meet the friends you needed to control the elements,” Luna said softly, “but you're wrong. She tailored your parents, and your parents' parents, and the ponies that came together to form them, and the ones before those, and the families that moved from Appolusia to form the Apple family, and the flight school in Cloudsdale, and every careful, solitary step down the line, to form you, and the souls that formed your friends, each one a perfect representation of an element of Harmony. You aren't just her student, Twilight Sparkle. You are her masterpiece. And you were created to save me from myself.” Luna bit her lower lip, looking almost ashamed. “So when I tell you that I value your insight in particular, maybe now you'll understand just why that is.”

Twilight Sparkle enjoyed having tasks with solid, set purposes. She liked having a goal. She liked knowing when she had done something right, clearly, and definitively. Most of all, she liked to know, to have at her disposal all the information surrounding any mystery in her life. As she lowered her trembling head to the cool grass of the hill overlooking the lake, she realized, for the first time, she had exactly that. The information. The goal. The purpose for her existence and the meaning behind everything she'd ever known.

By Equestria, she wished she'd never asked.

Chapter Four

“This doesn’t make you meaningless, you know,” Luna said, matter of factually. Twilight didn't lift her head. She was still parsing information, running it through the myriad of encyclopedic references she had in her brain, checking and cross checking, looking for clues and confirmations that could either back up or dismiss Luna's story. There wasn’t much. Her life, her upbringing, the serendipitous chance that brought her and Celestia together so many years ago. Could...that...have been engineered? Was that even possible? Yet, with so long, so many decades and centuries to carefully plan out all the variables...

“Twilight.”

Luna's voice had taken a sharper edge, intended to snap Twilight out of her daze. She blinked.

“...I...”

“Shhh.” Luna's response was quick and terse, but she had a small smile on. “Don't think about it yet, you're just digging a hole for yourself when you don't need to.”

“But...if I'm just a-”

“You are not 'just' an anything.” Luna responded, leaning down and brining her face close to Twilight's. “You are Twilight Sparkle. You were born with the greatest burden on your shoulders of any pony in Equestria and you never even knew it, and when the time came, you did not disappoint. I didn't bring you all the way out here to crush your self worth, Twilight.” her voice softened, and she sniffed a bit, the shine returning to her eyes. “I brought you out here to thank you. You saved me. You didn't know you were doing it, you may not have even meant to do it. But you did. For Celestia's master plan to work required the efforts of one singularly brilliant little pony, and that was you.” she giggled, and choked back a sob. “Thank you, Twilight.”

Luna's wing draped around the blanket shielding Twilight from the cold, and her forehead rested against the other pony's. Twilight felt tears hit her snout, and it took her a moment to realize they weren’t her own. Luna was silently sobbing, with little to give it away save for the small, quiet shudders in her chest. Realization slowly dawned on Twilight, and she felt a stab of sorrow in her chest like a twisting knife. “You couldn't tell anyone,” Twilight said softly, “Thats what you told me. No pony knows the full story because it would put Equestria at risk of releasing Discord again.” she swallowed, “No pony but me. Thats what you came here for. You just wanted somepony to know the truth”

That was enough to send Luna over the edge. She wailed openly in a flood of emotion that had been all but unimaginable not an hour before, and sobbed openly on Twilight's shoulder. The purple pony brought her hoof around Luna's neck and held her close.

“I...just...wanted..some-”

This time it was Twilight who softly hushed the other pony. she chewed her lip and stroked Luna's mane, holding her until her sobbing calmed enough to form coherent sentences. She didn't try and keep track of how much time passed, but it was no short ordeal. Every new minute seemed to awaken Luna to some new inner terror she'd held at bay for countless decades, and with her walls finally down, there was nothing to do but let them out. She was screaming at one point, some primal, world shaking howl that made Twilight tremble with sympathetic agony, but she held on, until it was all out, and Luna rested on Twilight's side, exhausted from the sudden, intense deluge of feeling.

“One thousand years,” Luna said softly, after the torrent had stopped and they had been silent for some time, “is a very...long time...to hate a thing.” Her voice was evening now, spaced only as she breathed, rather than between crying. Twilight was amazed she still had the energy to speak after what had just happened. “It fills you and sustains you and...feeds on itself. Its a terrible thing, and the worse part about it is, you start to need it. Hate fuels more hate, and up there, with nothing but this undying rage in my heart, it...just...” she sighs. “Im empty, Twilight. I don't know how to fill that void. When Celestia destroyed the physical manifestation of my connection to the elements of eternity she freed me from the bindings I had built around myself. I could see again. I could be...me. But its like having the wind pulled from your sails. I've had this..wretched, horrible, twisted companion rotting in my guts for ten centuries...but it has still been a companion.”

She looked up, as though trying to make Twilight understand by beaming emotion through her eyes. “I've stood on the palace balcony every night for the past year trying to find some way to fill myself with...meaning. With purpose, with joy and laughter and the wonderful things we BUILT Equestria to be full of, but I cant find it. Celestia has the joy and reverence of all of equestria to fill the empty parts of her eternal life, but me...” she laughs, despite herself. “How cruel a joke would it be, that after all this, after all her plans and careful machinations to finally save me from Nightmare Moon, that I would come back to a world that would rather I never returned.” She sniffs, “Or worse...that just doesn’t need me either way.”

Twilight wanted to offer some sort of encouragement, but could find nothing that didn't sound trite or meaningless. What could she offer that would make even a dent in a thousand years of emptiness? The task seemed all but impossible. Luna must have noticed her trying to mouth words without sound, because she smiled and chuckled a bit, sitting up. “You don't need to solve my problems in a night, Twilight, I promise. I didn't come here with that sort of expectation.”

“oh, phew.” Twilight breathed, finding herself genuinely relieved. Luna laughed and put a hoof on Twilight's head.

“You've done more already than you can possibly imagine. I...I guess I had no idea how much I needed to do that.” she snickered a little, then broke out into a genuine, giddy laugh that Twilight found herself swept up into. Before long both of them were laughing out loud, rolling on grass still wet with tears and the cold dew of the early morning.

“Were animals nocturnal before you and Princess Celestia changed how everything worked?” Twilight asked curiously as she strode alongside Luna on the way back toward Ponyville. The sky was brightening slowly, it wouldn't be long before the sun crested the mountains. Twilight was exhausted, but the sheer energy of the night's emotional interaction had kept her going. None the less, the idea of hitting a bed when she got back into town made her legs tremble with anticipation.

“Yep,” Luna replied. Her stature and body language had improved dramatically since the ordeal on the hilltop. There was a spring in her step that had been absent before, and while she still had a sort of sly sarcasm to her language, there was a greater emphasis on playfulness than had been there earlier. Twilight found the whole package rather delightful. These two could have battles of witticism that would be fit for legend.
Assuming Twilight wasn’t half asleep at the time.

“Most of them anyway,” Luna continued, “I altered a few. At the time it was to help keep ponies safe from them. Ursa Major's, for instance, didn't really care WHAT time of day it was if they were in a foul mood. Now at least they stay out of most ponies way during daylight hours.”

“So...you could do that? You could make some animals nocturnal?”

“C'mon, Twilight,” Luna said with a smirk, “I can make the moon wink at you. Of course I can make animals nocturnal.”

“So...why not ponies?” Twilight asked, genuinely perplexed, “I mean that seems like the obvious solution to the issue of no pony staying out during the night to appreciate it, right?”

“You've only existed during an age of manufactured peace,” Luna explained, “for as long as your history records, everypony has gotten along great, right? But Celestia and I know better. Back before we changed the seasons, things between different types of ponies were reaaaaallly...unpleasant. Ponies got hurt. Killed, even. Fights and feuds were common. If we'd deliberately sundered them into sun ponies and moon ponies on TOP of forcing them to handle the seasons, what do you suppose would have happened?”

Twilight sighed. “I suppose they would have fought.” Which was a difficult enough concept to swallow, but she could see the logic behind it.

“Especially with Nightmare Moon serving as the patron of the night,” Luna added, reminding her. “I've never asked Celestia, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that contributed to the decision not to at least try it out.”

“Do you resent her?” Twilight asked tentatively. She took note of her own tone while she posed the question. She found it sympathetic but direct, the way she might ask the same question of one of her friends, rather than how she might ask Celestia. In fact she doubted she'd ask Celestia that question at all. Of course, Celestia had never broken down on her shoulder for half the night. There was a certain level of familiarity that came from seeing one's soul laid bare.

“For what?”

“Any of it. All of it.”

“No,” Luna replied, looking out toward the town in the distance as they walked. “I did, of course. For a thousand years. Losing the physical part of your Element sort of...resets things. The power remains in the essence, inside yourself, just like how it did with you and the others when I shattered the stones that made the elements of Harmony, but for the full power of the element to return takes time, and the focus of the physical object. The crown has actually reformed, and Celestia has already put it my room as a gesture of trust.” she smiles a bit, “I think she trusts me more than I trust myself. Im not willing to put it back on yet. She wants me to, I know. Things are different now, theres time for me to properly exercise control of the aggressive portions of the element with the patient portions, and exert my will over it instead of letting it drag me around, but...well...” she looks over at twilight and shrugs. “would YOU be in a hurry to put it back on? You don't even wear your crown.”

Twilight blinked. She hadn't really considered that before. “Wear the element of magic? Regularly?” she mulled that over for a moment, “I guess I never considered it...appropriate. It seemed like one of those things that should only be used in emergencies.”

Luna nodded, “You're right, in a way. It diminishes the temptation to abuse the power. But you earned that crown, Twilight. Its yours by right. If you wanted to, you could start wearing it and learn to use its power more effectively.”

Twilight pondered that, before snorting suddenly and nudging Luna with her hip. “You dodged my question.”

Luna laughed. “Caught me, huh. You're right, it would be easy to resent a lot of it. The fake story, the lack of any mention of the schism or my roll in it. Sending Nightmare to the moon for a thousand years. Hate is a familiar feeling, I'm sure it wouldn't take much to start feeding it again.” she sighed and smiled, shaking her head. “But I don't want to. And its...really wonderful to finally be able to see all the good things shes been doing in the meantime. She succeed where I failed, and she got me back, here, as myself again. It took a while, but really? A thousand years?” she looked up at the fading stars, “What's a thousand years, Twilight, compared to eternity.”

It wasn’t until they were trotting back into town and the sun was beaming the first rays of morning across the dew-soaked windows of Ponyville's various pastel colored houses that Twilight hit a sudden burst of inspiration. “You said....you said if you forced half the ponies to be nocturnal, they'd resent it. It would cause some sort of divide that might lead to more fighting, right?”

“Right. At the time, anyway. Wounds were still pretty fresh back then. These days it would probably be interpreted as me trying to take over Equestria,” she chuckled, “not much of an improvement.”

“What if ponies volunteered?” Twilight asked, stopping for a moment. Luna slowed to a stop as well, lifting a brow.

“Volunteered? To be made nocturnal?”

“Yes!”

“What pony would do that?” Luna asked incredulously. “The night has a lot to offer, but to give up the sun means leaving a world of warmth and light and company and friends, all the parts that make up a pony and have for generations. You live in a culture that worships the sun, Twilight. I could see, I don't know, a handful of ponies that might make some impulse decision to do it just to be different, but a community? To willingly give up the life they love?”

“So don't start with a community,” Twilight replied, grinning. “Start with one. And her fillies, and her fillies' fillies. Whats a few generations next to eternity, right?”

Luna blinked, seemingly taken aback by the idea that any pony would willing give up life in the sun to join her after so many years of cultural heliocentric emphasis. She looked up at Twilight. “But who would-”

“I would.” Twilight responded, and shocked herself the moment she said it. Would she? Would she really? She wasn’t just any pony, either, she was the star student of Celestia the Sun pony. Would becoming nocturnal mean giving all that up? Thankfully, Luna didn't immediately jump on the chance.

“That's not a decision you can make on twenty four hours without sleep, Twilight,” She replied, but she smiled. “Thank you, though.” She looked like she was going to dismiss the whole suggestion as the delirium of a sleep deprived mind, but Twilight knew it was more than that. She may be tired, but she was also on to something.

“Luna, wait.” Luna? The 'princess' prefix had been completely dropped. Somehow that felt right. Luna looked back, and Twilight stepped up beside her. “You're right,” she said, “Its not something I should be deciding right now. But...its also not something I want to just give up. I've spent my entire life learning, and I think I might have picked up more in the last night I spent with you on a hilltop than I have in a decade of magic school. Being nocturnal doesn’t mean I have to hide from the sun like its going to melt me. It just means I'm changing my living schedule a bit. Let me think it over?”

Luna stayed still for a moment, before breaking out in a smile and hugging Twilight around the neck. She sniffed back a tear and stepped backward, nodding. “think it over,” she said. “There's...there's a lot involved, a lot to consider. You should talk to your friends. Talk to Celestia, even. And me. You can always talk to me. No letters, ok? Come outside and look at the moon and ask. Ill come.” she chuckles, “I haven't got much else to do these days anyway.” Twilight smiled and nodded, yawning. Luna laughed. “Go, go, your dragon is probably worried sick about you by now.”

Twilight's eyes shot open. “SPIKE!” she exclaimed in alarm, “Oh no! I told him to go wait at fluttershy's until I went to get him! That was before we started talking, he's probably got her so worried by now they'll go off and start a search party!”

Luna made a concerned face. “uh oh..”

“You've gotta get out of here, they've had all night to blow things out of proportion” twilight fretted, “Ill go to Fluttershy's and deal with it, you just pop out of here before some pony see's you and starts imagining things!” Luna nodded, and gave Twilight a final hug with her wing. “You make sure you get some sleep, ok?”

“I will, and Ill talk to you again when I wake up!” she promised. Luna smiled, and faded from view in a swirl of black. The magical manifestation of her teleportation was different than Twilight's, less of a pop, more of a phase. Inwardly, Twilight wondered why, but she was more concerned with solving what was sure to be a grossly inflated situation at Fluttershy's cottage. Hopefully nopony had started up fires and collected pitchforks yet...

Chapter Five

The situation was worse than she'd hoped, but better than she'd feared. All the lights were on in Fluttershy's cottage by the time Twilight came trampling to her doorway, but at least there was no hoard of angry ponies out front gearing up to hunt down a kidnapper. There were, however, five concerned (and relieved) looking ponies and one very exasperated baby dragon pouring out onto Fluttershy's front porch to meet her. Twilight could hear her name being called as they spotted her in the dim morning light running up to join them, and felt a warm flush of appreciation that the lot of them had stayed up all night in concern for her whereabouts. Of course, that also meant they were all as tired as she was and likely in far fouler moods.

“TWILIGHT!” Rainbow Dash was the first to reach her, swooping in at a low cruising altitude and flaring up short in front of her. The rush of wind that followed in her way blew Twilight's mane backward. “Where have you been?! Spike said you ordered him out of the house because you were worried some imposter was waiting for you in your room!”

“Imposter?” Twilight asked, shooting a glance toward spike, who opened his mouth to speak as he came close, but was cut off by Rarity.

“Not 'imposter', exactly. He said that you thought it might be, well...Princess Luna.” The name came out softly, as though the white pony wasn’t sure if she was supposed to be speaking it out loud. “Was it?” Applejack demanded, “Ah swear Twi, if I'd known it was her I never woulda left you tah go in there alone. There's just no telling what that pony has been up to since she got back, always hidin' out in the palace.”

“It was.” twilight replied simply. She was going to follow up, but bit her tongue. This was a good opportunity to find out her friends unedited reactions toward the thought of Luna paying a social visit. General gasps of confirmation rippled through the ponies around her.

“are..are you alright, twilight?” Fluttershy stammered, “She didn't try to hurt you or anything, did she? Spike thought you might be gone an hour, maybe two, but all night?”

“You look like you've been crying, darling,” Rarity's own voice had a worried warble to it as she tilted her head to get a different angle on Twilight's face.

“What'd she do, huh?!” Rainbow was puffing steam from her nostrils now, fuming at the apparent cowardice of the situation. “I cant believe she'd come back a year after we stomped her and try and pin you down alone. If I'd been there I would've-”

“Enough.” Twilight said firmly, silencing Rainbow with a glare. It softened as she smiled and nuzzle her friend. “thank you, all of you, for being so worried about me. It says a lot about the friends I have. If something bad had actually happened, I couldn't think of any stronger group to come to my rescue.” she chuckled, “but nothing bad happened. We talked. The entire night, up on the hill by the lake. It was...really long, and really...taxing.” she sighed with exhaustion. “Shes incredible. They're both incredible. Somehow knowing more about the ponies behind the legends makes the legends that much more amazing.” she blinks sleep from her eyes. “look you guys, I have an awful lot to tell you all, and its going to take a long time to do it. We're all tired. I'm safe, and I cant thank you enough for looking out for me. Lets get some sleep, ok? Ill tell you the whole story when we wake up.”

As curious as the others were, it was hard to argue with Twilight's logic. “You can all stay at my cottage,” Fluttershy volunteered, “er, um...if you want to, that is. Kind of a sleep over....thing.” “emphasis on sleep,” Spike chimed in, retreating into the living room through the front door.
“Thanks, Fluttershy,” Twilight said as she walked inside, “and thanks for looking after Spike.” She heard Fluttershy dismiss her thanks as unnecessary behind her as she entered, but by then she was already half asleep. Much as she wanted her bed at home, at this point, a soft rug was as good as anything. Pinkie Pie was the last one through the door, with a pout on her face.
“Sleep? Seriously?” she griped, “Maaaaan, you ponies are a bunch of party poopers.”

“And you believed all that?” Rainbow asked incredulously. It was some three in the afternoon by the time all the tenants of Fluttershy's cottage were awake and moving again. Spike had fixed them 'breakfast' with Fluttershy's assistance (which resulted in fewer broken plates than normal) and Twilight's relation of the night's events had taken another hour for fully expound upon.

“Every word.” Twilight replied, albeit quietly. She knew the potential foolishness of that statement. There was always the chance that Luna was just a phenomenally convincing liar. After all, she'd had a thousand or more years to practice her poker face. But eventually, now or later, Twilight would have to choose to believe or disbelieve, and she chose to believe.

“Twilight, that's crazy,” Rainbow insisted, rolling her eyes. “all of it. ANY of it. Celestia planning out our entire family tree just to free her sister? The elements of Eternity? Come on! Who's heard of the elements of eternity!?”

“had you heard of the elements of Harmony a year ago?” Rarity asked pointedly. Rainbow made a face.

“Not my point,” she said in her defense, “shes obviously trying to cover up for something. I think its a plot to get you to join her side and take another shot at the Princess. I mean think about it! Weather her story is true or not, she clearly lost some of her power when we nailed her last year. She needs help if shes going to try again. If she gets you, then the elements of harmony wont work anymore AND she'll have a personal tool against the Princess.

“Hate tah say it, but Rainbow has a point,” applejack ventures. Rainbow nodded firmly, then blinked and looked at the yellow earth pony.

“Why do you hate to say it?”

“Because you'll never stop talkin' bout it if you turn out to be right.”

Rainbow Dash didn't seem to have a defense worked up for that little point. Twilight nodded a little, eying the rug and poking at it idly with her hoof. “I considered that.”

“But you still believe her?” Pinkie Pie asked. She was listening in an upside down position on one of the chairs, with her legs up in the air and her head hanging downward as she watched. Twilight nodded.

“I know that its easy to get swept up in emotion,” she explained, “sometimes you can get too sympathetic toward some pony and not notice they're trying to hide something. Its happened to everyone once or twice. Im usually objective enough to notice it.” she shook her head, “but...if you had seen it...” she looked up and her eyes shimmered a little, gleaming with moisture. “she made my bones shake, rainbow. I haven't heard so much agony in a pony's voice in all my life. She needed my help last night. And if it was all an act, then consider me sold on it, because I would've held her all night long if it would've helped fill the empty spots in her heart.

The conviction in Twilight's voice was sufficient to quash any further argument on the part of Rainbow Dash. The vibrant pony glanced downward, as though ashamed to have doubted the situation. Twilight knew she wasn’t convinced, and was genuinely thankful for it. Rainbow's stubborn unwillingness to compromise on first impressions had prevented more than a few catastrophes in the past.

“But...if its all true...” Fluttershy whimpered softly, “then we're all here because Princess Celestia made us be.”

“I don't know if its quite as direct as that,” Twilight said quickly, looking at her pink haired friend and trying to beam reassurance through her eyes. “Luna made it seem like our decisions in life were our own, it was just our um...upbringing, that was molded. Princess Celestia arranged situations in which we would learn the skills and experience the events that would help mold us into what was required to get the job done. It was still us doing it.”

“Isn't that the same thing though?” Pinkie asked, pointing a hoof at Twilight accusingly. “I mean, if you've got a cookie, and the cookie is made of dirt, but it has delicious chocolate bits on top of it, and you're given the cookie and you have to eat at least some part of it, wouldn't you choose to eat the delicious chocolate bits every time? Its like you're given a choice that has no choice in it!”

Twilight blinked. “Pinkie...that had to be the weirdest analogy for causality and the illusion of consciousness I've ever heard.”

“Thanks! Cause-who?”

“Never-mind,” Twilight replied, “But you are right.”

“Of course I'm right, cookies are delicious!”

Twilight chose to terminate that particular line of conversation before someone’s brain got hurt. Rarity mercifully chimed in anyway, taking things in a different direction. “Does it really matter?”

This seemed to catch the others by surprise. Even Twilight tilted her head. “That...wouldn't bother you?”

“Of course not,” Rarity said dismissively, swishing her purple tail. “Its really not so very different from a Cutie Mark. Its a hint, something that points you in the right direction. Is that really bad? Are you disappointed with your life, Twilight?” Twilight thought about it for a moment, and rarity continued. “I personally don't think the princess sat down and decided to make me open a dress shop. But she might have given me a knack for design, or sewing, or impeccable fashion sense, and even if that led to some sort of inevitable conclusion in which I ran Ponyville's finest in evening wear, I like what I do. I don't plan on changing it now just because some pony else decided a long time ago to help me get there.

“I might have...” Fluttershy said from the corner. The others turned to face her. Even Pinkie Pie turned over and sat up in her chair.

“But you love animals, Fluttershy.” Rainbow said, feeling for a reaction. Fluttershy sat upright and nodded vigorously.

“Oh yes, of course I do, but...my element of harmony is Kindness. That may be really helpful when dealing with some animals, but others need a harsh stare to kind of...um...get through to them. The thing is, I've always been worried or frightened or just..shy...to be anything but kind to other ponies, even if sometimes they don't really deserve it. If it turns out I was tailored to be what I am...” she looked up, “What could I have gotten instead if I'd been just assertive enough to not quite embody the kindness element? Would being less shy or..or afraid...would that make me happier? I've tried, you know. Rainbow knows. Its never really worked.”

Rainbow dash nodded in agreement to that statement, and made a motion with her dangling hoof that mimicked a limp noodle.

Twilight pondered that situation too. Would she be happier? Twilight had only ever wanted to be the best student she could be. She'd taken no shortage of flak for it, too. But that had always been alright. Just came with the territory, she'd told herself. But did it have to? The clock on Fluttershy's wall struck Five in the evening, and Twilight's expression firmed.

“Spike!”

Spike sat upright suddenly. He, more than any of the others, had been unconcerned with talk of destiny and determinism. Twilight had hatched him from an egg personally and was bound by an ancient agreement between Equestria and the dragon lands to look after him until he could stand alone, in return for his services as a retainer. His fate was written in ink on a contract, more than magic in the air. He really couldn't see what the fuss was all about. “er, yes?”

“Run down to the charter service and reserve a pega-craft for me please, for immediate departure to Canterlott.”

Spike balked. “Tonight?”

“Yes, Spike, tonight,” Twilight said firmly, “and you'd better get going, there's probably only one more leaving tonight. I'll be along shortly.”

Spike yelped and dashed out the door toward the center of town, and Twilight got to her feet. The others looked at her in surprise. “You're going to Canterlott?”

“This isn't going to get resolved until I go to the source. I've been,” she chose her words carefully, “reluctant...to talk to Princess Celestia about this direction, but I think I need to. If nothing else, some kind of explanation is warranted. If Im on some sort of cosmic puppet string, I want to know what happens now that my job is complete.”

“we should come too,” Applejack said, but Twilight held up her hoof.

“You deserve to know as much as I do,” Twilight acknowledged, “but I've been her student for most of my life, and shes never told me anything remotely like what I heard last night. I want to face both of them. I think they'll talk to me together. I'm owed that much.” She turned purposefully toward the door, “Ill tell you all what happens, I promise. I need to get back to the library before I leave.”

“What do you need to get at the library?” Pinkie Pie asked cautiously as Twilight exited the house. The purple pony stopped for a moment, and looked back at them from over her shoulder. She had a sternness to her face that the others had come to realize was a force not to be taken lightly.

“My crown.”

Chapter Six

There was a basic lesson in unicorn magic pertaining to the use of ones aura as a means of extending ones body. It was just about the lowest level trick any unicorn could learn, and the most useful. Unicorns of almost any talent level could do it, with varying levels of precision, but the trick itself was universal. It let a pony reach out and grab things with magic, or manipulate objects, lift things, use tools, all manner of intricately detailed tasks usually reserved for creatures like dragons that had hands. With concentration and control, a unicorn could control many objects at once. Three, four, maybe even five if she was particularly talented. More if the action was as simple and basic as lifting something and putting it down somewhere else. Twilight could remember the first time she learned it, having taught herself from a book of beginning spells, straining and struggling to turn the simple parchment pages until it became second-nature to her. Getting that little page to turn felt like she'd won a marathon.

Twilight sparkle let the energy of the element of Magic course through her as she stepped off the Pegasus-drawn chariot on the Palace's receiving platform. It was like being plugged into a waterfall. Torrents of energy rushed through her body like waves, making the hairs down her flanks stand on end and sending shimmers of white glazing across her eyes. She toyed with the power, teasing it, testing it, feeling out its reactions as she had the entire trip over. She'd never before considered the Element as anything beyond a cog in the larger machine of Harmony, but what Luna had said stuck out in her mind.

You earned that crown, Twilight. Its yours by right.

Twilight Sparkle was tentatively sure she could lift every pony in Canterlott off their hooves, and fold them into cute little origami boxes.

She had no intention of doing so, of course. She had no intention of any aggression at all. But she wanted to feel prepared. She wanted to be in such a form that she could not be ignored, or dismissed, or avoided. She had never confronted Celestia about anything that landed on such personal levels relating to the Princess's past, and she wanted to be absolutely sure there was no chance of the beautiful white mare telling her to drop the issue. She felt, now, that she had that certainty.

She ascended the staircase leading up to the palace gates. They were closed now, the main ones always were once night fell, and it had been dark for almost an hour when Twilight arrived in Canterlott, but the Palace Staff had an entrance to the side that was always open. It was flanked by two proud Equestrian Guard, the royal protectors of the Princess. Twilight knew most of the Palace's guardponies, and was on reasonably good terms with the majority. Naturally, today had to be the exception.

“Sparkle.”

“Phillip. I'm here to see Princess Celestia.”

“No visitation after dark, Sparkle, you know that. Unless you've got documentation?”

Twilight's eyes narrowed. Phillip wasn’t a particularly bad pony, he was just...proud. A proud palace guard from a very long line of proud palace guards that had served Celestia for generations. Not a single one of them had ever seen a major conflict, but they none the less treated every pony who wandered up to them as a potential threat to Equestria.

“I have special dispensation from Celestia, Phillip. You know that.”

The larger stallion snorted, “That doesn’t give you permission to disturb the Princess whenever you get scared of monsters under the bed, little pony. Unless you have a very, very good reason, you're waiting until morning.”

Twilight grit her teeth, and somewhere above Phillip's head, a stone block in the palace facade cracked in half like it had been struck by some mighty hammer. While the cause couldn't be traced back to Twilight herself by any visual means, the pebbles at her hooves were dancing and popping.

“Phillip.”

The new voice caused the guards to turn around and bow their heads, and Twilight to take a breath and compose herself. Princess Celestia was walking up through the hallway, tall and blindingly beautiful even in the dim light. Her astral mane and perfect white hair made one wince slightly when they first beheld her. It was like catching a glimpse of the sun. She walked up behind the guards and looked down at Twilight, then up at the damaged slab in the wall. She smiled a small, knowing smile, laced with a sort of inner sadness, as though she'd seen a problem coming and hadn’t done anything to stop it, and addressed her guards.

“Let her through, Phillip.”

“But..Princess-”

Celestia chuckled. “Phillip, if you had three full companies of ponies just like you, you might be able to stop Twilight Sparkle from walking through this door. As you don't, and I hate waking the palace staff to clean up messes, I suggest you step aside.” she gave him a wink, “And to be honest, I'd still put my bets on her. You called her names a few years back, and I thiiiiink she remembers.”

Phillip looked positively crushed, and Twilight felt a renewed admiration for her teacher. While Celestia had always been supportive, she was a strong proponent of not letting one's ego get away with them. The result was that her public reassurance of Twilight's magical advancement had been somewhat absent over the years. The guards obediently stepped aside and Twilight through, and she didn't look at them as she passed. The fact of the matter was Celestia had likely just saved her from doing something incredibly stupid, and that wasn’t lost on Twilight. She took a breath, calmed her nerves, and reminded herself that she wasn’t here to start a problem.

“Thank you,” she said, looking up at Celestia. She'd decided that starting the conversation on a lighter foot might help diffuse things a little, “He's always been a little high strung.”

“I almost feel bad for stopping him,” Celestia mused, “this may have been the first and last time he had to stand up against a genuine threat to the palace.”

Twilight was taken aback, and immediately felt ashamed of having arrived at her teacher's doorstep wearing the magical equivalent to an army on her forehead. Celestia put a wing over her and leaned down. “I was kidding, child. I know you aren't here to harm me. Its me who feels ashamed.” Twilight looked up at Celestia as she brought her head back up, keeping pace with her as they reentered the main hall and ascended the staircase that lead to where Celestia normally sat. “If there is anything I regret when it comes to your education,” she continues, “Its that the first time you had to come to me with something that truly mattered to you, you felt the need to do so with a security blanket.” She sighed, “It doesn’t speak highly about my approachability as a mentor”.

Twilight smiled a bit. “It might not speak very highly about my judgment as a student, either,” she admits, “but I wanted...to make sure I had your attention.”

“You always do, little one,” Celestia assured her, “but I understand what you mean. This time is...a little different.” she nods up toward the curtain at the back of the throne room. “Come with me. You went through a lot of effort and of turmoil to make sure I would give you the answers you're looking for. You've never let me down. I'll see if I can't do you the same courtesy.”

Twilight had been in the castle's inner chambers before. She'd even been in the Princess's bedroom once when she was little and Celestia was showing her around. She'd loved that. Celestia showed her little dolls she said made her happy to look at, and let Twilight bounce around on her massive bed. She would've killed for a bed like that. Or at least begged profusely. It was big enough for at least three ponies Celestia's size. “Perks of royalty,” Celestia had said with a wink, when Twilight had asked why she had it. The memory seemed so long ago.

“She didn't lie to you,” Celestia said as they walked down the empty corridors toward the deeper chambers of the palace. Her luminescent mane glinted beautiful patterns off the reflective marble walls and made the hallway feel like a kaleidoscope. “About any of it.”

“You know what she said?” Twilight asked, and the princess nodded.

“I know her. She didn't lie to you.” The answer was direct, and rather nonnegotiable. Twilight had expected it, she didn't think Luna had been deceiving her, but to have it so flatly confirmed took some of the momentum out of her stride. She'd rather expected to have had to drag that out of Celestia, rather than to have it volunteered. Twilight chose her next statement carefully, as she was particularly concerned about the answer.

“What happens to me now?” She asked, looking up at the larger mare. “You've tailored everything, every last little detail, to result in me and my friends to accomplish this...pre destined...stellar...SOMETHING of a task, and now its done. A thousand years of planning and its over. What now?” Twilight had stopped walking, and Celestia turned to face her.

“What do you want to do now?” She asked.

“I don't know!” Twilight exclaimed in exasperation. The real frustration was coming out now, the root of her concern with this particular issue. “If..if everything can be so..so exact and precise and perfect, if you can measure pony's LIVES like little lines on a chalk board, then what happens at the end of the board? Is it OVER now? Am I just...sort of...useless? Have I played my part and now I-”

“Twilight.”

“Huh?”

“Shut up.”

Twilight Sparkle blinked in shock, and Celestia smiled and laughed. “Little one, you let yourself get into such frenzy’s its amazing you haven’t outright exploded by now.”

“And exploded again,” Twilight whimpered.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing. Its something Pinkie said.”

“That's ridiculous, you can't explode twice.” Celestia kneeled down on the floor in front of Twilight and smiled at her. “You are not useless, Twilight Sparkle. Nor have you ever been a puppet on my strings. What Luna said is true, I have laid the foundation for your advancement. I cant even count the amount of variables I've covered trying to make sure that I got you and everyone else right. But there wasn’t anything magical about it.”

Twilight blinked. “How...how can there not be anything magical about it?”

Celestia put her horn to Twilight's forehead affectionately. “Think, Twilight. When your parents bought you your first magic book, why did they do it?”

“To...try and get me interested in magic?”

“And when you showed an aptitude, did they encourage that?”

Twilight nodded. “They brought me to private lessons, and eventually to the magic school here, where I met you.”

“Why?”

“I...Because they wanted me to succeed?” Twilight ventured. Celestia nodded.

“Because they had a mission for their little fillie. They wanted her to be the best she could be, and they knew a path to accomplish that goal, so they put you on it, encouraged you when you went forward, scolded you when you went sideways, and reinforced you when you fell backward.” Celestia sat upright and gave a small, knowing smile that betrayed the long centuries of experience she had hiding behind her perfect features. “I have had a mission for a thousand years, Twilight. I wanted to save the pony that made all this possible. I wanted to give her the life she was denied. So I found the right ponies, and I set them on the right paths, and I gave them pushes when they needed it. I don't have a child, Twilight. I have an entire race I've chosen to parent.” she gives a little laugh, “as a result, the uh...shall we say 'details' of responsible parenting vary a little.”

Twilight sat in stunned silence. “I..sort of thought it was more dramatic than that.”

Celestia laughed out loud, a rich, cheerful laugh that made Twilight smile in spite of herself. “Luna didn't lie, little one, but she is the creature she is. Sometimes the dark can make things seem a little more...dramatic...than they actually are.” she gets up off the floor and stands. “Come with me, I want to show you something.”

Twilight was muddling over Celestia's explanation as they continued down the corridors. “To answer your question, Twilight,” Celestia said, “What you do is, and has always been, your choice to make. Im not the master of your fate, no matter how much I may seem it. If you choose to get up tomorrow and eat nothing but muffins all day, that's up to you. If you choose instead to get up and burn all of Ponyville in balefire until nothing but ash remains, that too is up to you.” she smiled and nudged twilight playfully with her wing, “between the two, I suggest the former. Im fond of Ponyville.”

Twilight laughed, at least for a moment. “Princess...”

“Hmm?”

Twilight looked up, “You seem so willing to explain the whole uh...targeted upbringing situation to me now that Ive kinda found out about it...why didn't you tell me the truth about Nightmare moon and Discord after we fought him?”

Celestia looked downcast for a moment. “Reluctance. Fear, maybe.” she glanced at her student, “I do get frightened, Twilight. More often than I'd like to admit. I think ive been frightened for the last thousand years.”

“You were worried it wouldn't work.”

“Terrified would be more accurate,” Celestia admitted. “I don't know if you could understand, fully, in the lifetime of one little pony, just how much of a gamble that battle one year ago on a ruined hunk of stone really was. I bet a thousand years of hope on you, Twilight, and you came through for me.” she sniffed a bit, “I think I didn't tell you because I realized that when you found out, when you really appreciated what had happened, you'd know as well as I know that there is no...possible way...I can thank you enough.” Celestia looked apologetic, even a little teary eyed, and Twilight realized she recognized the look. She'd seen it one year ago when the princess held her sister close for the first time in a thousand years. A sort of shaky, almost disbelieving realization that some massive threshold had been crossed, and a new sort of life was beginning. Then, it had been a reuniting with her sister. Now, it was a quintessential shift in the relationship between teacher and student. More, it was the ultimate release of a thousand years of planning, and the dismissal of the lead role to go on to other stages.

“I am in your debt in a way that transcends lifetimes, Twilight. I really...have no idea how to balance that scale.” Twilight hadn't spoken since Celestia's admission, finding no words to say that could accurately convey how she felt. She'd just walked on, in silence, listening.

They had arrived at a doorway down a hall Twilight hadn't seen before. The door itself was large enough for Celestia, but not flashily adorned. It had large iron-wrought hinges and massive, gnarled wooden slabs as its primary construction, and positively radiated ancient design. There was no part of it that echoed the palace walls' ornate construction or delicate inlaid filigree. Looking closely in the dim light, Twilight could see deep gouges in the thick wood. Hoof prints, from ironclad hooves slamming repeatedly into its unyielding bulk.

“Where...are we?” Twilight asked, looking up at the princess.

“The beginning.” Celestia responded, and for a moment, Twilight could see Luna's face echoed in Celestia's posture.

Chapter Seven

Some places speak when you enter them. What they say varies based on who they talk to, and how well the audience is listening. Some places speak softly, others speak with voices so loud they drown the sounds of the world in their silence. This place was one of those. When the massive wooden door with its ancient hinges opened at Celestia's touch, Twilight could hear nothing but the deafening silence and hollow rush of the terribly old, dead air of the room. Each of her hoofclops sounded like an affront to the sanctity of the chamber. She was frightened to let her heart beat too loudly. “If you strain,” Celestia said quietly, “you can almost hear the armies...”
“Armies...” Twilight repeated, and saw her breath fog up in front of her. Lights slowly brightened the large room, magical lamps flickering to life. The stone here was different. Old, pockmarked, thick and robust. Desks and platforms were hammered with massive iron anchors into the rocks. It was stark and utilitarian, and Twilight could feel its history. “You said this was the beginning.”

“It is,” Celestia replied. “The last pony-made structure in all of Equestria to stand unchanged since the time before Discord's defeat. This is where we started it. Luna and I set about uniting the ponies and took the fight to Discord from this very room, over a thousand years ago.” she smiled, her eyes somewhat distant. “she used to stand there, where you're standing, and lay maps on that table. Luna figured out how to navigate ponies through the madness Discord was creating. You couldn’t use landmarks, they were always changing, but Luna found a way. 'You just get the ponies,' shed tell me,” Celestia laughed a little, wiping her eye, “'and I'll make sure we get back.'”

Twilight got the distinct feeling Celestia hadn’t been in this room in a very, very long time. She seemed almost frightened to put her hooves on the platforms, like the memories of them might swallow her whole. “When was the last time you came here?” Twilight asked. She was watching the Princess carefully. This was such a new side to her teacher, something she'd never seen before despite all their years together. Celestia was always so sure, so certain of herself and everything else. Always with a smile and a little tease that made everything better. But here, she was surrounded by memories of a time Twilight couldn't even fathom. Chaos. Ponies against ponies. And at the end of it all...

“The hallway, and the door,” Celestia said at last, “I see often. I walk down and stare at it, and run my hoof over the scars on the door and remember. But the room?” she shook her head. “Not since after Nightmare. Not since I put that there.” she nodded to something behind Twilight, who turned around to look, and found herself wholly unprepared for what she saw.

It was the armor. A blinding, gleaming suit of platted barding tailor made for princess Celestia, and it was the single most beautiful object Twilight had ever seen. Across every surface was scripture and filigree proclaiming victories against Discord and triumphs over chaos. The iconography of the sun was emblazoned on its flanks, and intricately interlinked slats of silver traveled though the joints to provide protection and mobility. Chain, like spun gold, served as additional protection under the plates themselves and a helm, floating just overhead in a shimmering field of levitation magic placed there centuries earlier, glinted in the pale light with inlayed beams of sunlight crafted into its metallic surface. It was magnificent. Untouched by age or dust, it was as though such things were too frightened, or too awestruck, to blemish it. This was the tool of a savior, and to look upon it brought Twilight near to tears.

“Earthpony blacksmiths forged the plates in ovens and anvils made from fallen meteors,” Celestia said quietly. “one, single Pegasus, who I saved from Discord's monsters as a small child, who never grew much bigger than half your size, spent her entire life carving the scripture and putting the scenes and illumination into the plating.” Celestia smiled at the intensity of the recollection. “She went blind doing it, Twilight. It meant that much to her. Fluttershy is her descendent, dozens of generations down the line. I know. I kept track.” She stepped up to it, walking around its back side and up toward the front again. “Every single letter is enchanted. Every dot. Every slash. Every seraph. Some of the spellwork is just...unimaginably detailed. I couldn't hope to duplicate it. This, this one right here,” she pointed at the direct heart of the armor protecting the suit's chest, between the forelegs, “This is a protection charm. It was put there by a unicorn no older than you are, Twilight. I found her dying, and I lifted her head to look at me, and she...” Celestia motioned with her hooves, as though trying to find the words to express what she saw in her mind. “She smiled, Twilight. She couldn’t have had more than two thirds of her body left and she smiled at me. And she pointed her horn at my chest and she said...she...”

“'I held on, so I could give you this.'”

Celestia and Twilight turned around, and saw Luna standing in the doorway, watching. She was chewing her lower lip, and swallowed hard before stepping shakily into the room. “and her eyes lit up like the sun,” Luna said softly, “and she poured her soul into that glyph, and created the single strongest barrier spell Equestria has ever seen. Stronger than Discord's chaos, stronger than any of the creatures he could conjure. It was...flawless magic.” She stepped up beside Twilight, eyes fixated on the tapestry of steel in front of her. “She could've used it to save herself. She could've fended off any injury with just a fraction of that power. But she didn't. She saved every last ounce, because the Celestia the Sun was coming, and needed it more.”

Celestia's tears were the first spot of moisture to hit the cold stone floors in ten centuries. She looked over at Luna and shared a smile with her. “You made the helm for me,” she said, and luna laughed, sniffing.

“I never felt like the sun rays turned out right,”

“Ive seen the pattern before,” Twilight said, actually startled to hear her own voice. “Its all over Canterlot. In the filigree and the inlays in the palace bulwarks. Its everywhere. I always thought it was just more sun heraldry, but...”

“No,” Celestia said, shaking her head. “Its her.”

Luna walked past Twilight to Celestia and embraced her, and Twilight watched from beside the armor, fascinated by what she'd witnessed over the past two days. More had been said here, and on the hill, than simple recounts of history. She had witnessed creatures heal whose minds and bodies stretched so far back in time that they had to revisit thousand year old wars to find where there wounds had come from. But it had worked, and here they were, and for the first time in two nights, Twilight felt like something had gone exactly as it should have.

“Come on,” Luna said to both of them, stepping back from Celestia and casting one final glance toward the armor. “Let's get out of here.”

Had any pony been around to watch Twilight and Celestia descend the stairways and darkened halls of the palace together, they wouldve been shocked to see them come back laughing, with Luna in tow. They may well have been shocked to see them come back together at all. Such an outcome haden't looked possible on the grim faces that had departed the public chambers earlier that evening.

Twilight had removed her crown and looped it around the back of her neck like a circlet during the walk back up. She found it a little less ostentatious there, and if nothing else, it made her feel a little less like she'd barged into the palace brandishing a weapon. Celestia had noticed, as had Luna, and asked her why.

“I dont think I like how it makes me feel,” Twilight had replied, making a sour face and glancing back at the crown. “I mean, I do, its...flush. Powerful,” she giggled at the thought of it, an picked up a little tingle from the crown, as though it was encouraging her, “but I think it effects my judgment. I dont dislike Phillip, honestly. I think he's a jerk, and he needs to be taken down a peg or two, but I dont hate him.” she gave her mane a little shake, clearing her thoughts, “But if you hadn't come along, Princess, I think I would've...”

“Taken him down a peg or two?” Luna offered, grinning. Twilight snorted.

“Put him through a wall, maybe. At least half of him.”

Princess Celestia laughed. “If not for the 'killing him' part, I'd tell you to go for it. Not that I dont appreciate his family's dedication, I'd just like them to step a few paces back once in a while. Its like having a swarm of bee's around you alll daaaay looong.”

“she has to run behind the curtain to fart,” Luna asides to Twilight, leaning in. Celesta whapped her little sister on the rear with her spectral tail and Luna darted a few feet away with a giggle, leaving Twilight to snicker hard at the mental image. Celestia sighed,

“It'd be funnier if it wasn’t so true” the larger pony muttered,

“Pretty sure thats what makes it funny to begin with,” Luna replied, falling in step at Twilight's side and sharing a softer laugh with her. Princess Celestia quickly found a way to rescue her dignity by redirecting the conversation back to Twilight's crown, rather than the fine art of averting public attention from bodily functions when you have to spend most of your days sitting at the top of a stairway.

“Any time you get exposed to some new form of power, weather its magical or political or social, even emotional, theres always going to be the temptation to use it when you don't need to, Twilight,” Celestia offered, nosing at the crown on the little pony's back. “The real trick is to make sure you dont go looking for excuses to use it. Thats what starts problems.”

“Or not looking for enough reasons not to,” Luna added. Twilight wasn’t sure if she was referring to her own example, but nudged her all the same.

“I think we've established you as the product of some uh...unfortunate circumstances, Luna,” Twilight said, stopping Luna from dwelling on the past. She seemed appreciate enough that she didnt insist otherwise. Twilight smiled reassuringly, which transitioned into a wide yawn as they reached the main hall of the palace. Luna smirked.

“At this rate youre not going to need magic to become nocturnal, Twilight,” She teased, “what is this, two nights now youve been up till dawn?”

Twilight's eyes widdened a bit. “Dawn? Seriously? Already?”

Celestia chuckled, “not for a few hours yet. She's messing with you, little one,” but her eyebrow raised a bit. “become...nocturnal?”

“Her idea,” Luna said quickly, pointing at Twilight. The purple pony coughed nervously as Celestia's other brow met her first one.

“Twilight?”

Luna stepped in quickly to provide her new, and perhaps only, friend with a buffer. “It was a suggestion she came up with yesterday, after I cried my eyes out on her shoulder all night long. Im pretty sure it was just a spur of the moment idea, she doesn't know what it would involve.”

“I havent written it off,” Twilight said, feeling the need to voice her own opinions. In light of what she now knew about her past, and the decisions that were made to bring her to this point, the idea of making one choice she could be almost sure was entirely her own seemed rather appealing.

Celestia looked worried, and glanced back and forth between her student and Luna, before settling her gaze on her sister. “You didnt-”

“I didn't!” Luna insisted.

“She didn't.” Twilight confirmed firmly, now looking up toward Celestia. “I haven’t made up my mind about it yet, but it has my attention.”

Celestia maintained her worried look, as though at any moment she was going to burst out with a dozen reasons why it was a bad thing to do. She didn't, though. Instead she took a breath and looked out over the empty main hall, long since abandoned for the night.

“Ive never known you to make a habit of rash decisions, Twilight,” she said, “a mistake here or there maybe, sometimes a destructive choice, but when you sit down and put your head in it, you've caught things even I miss. I don't expect this will be any different.” she turned and shot Luna a glare, “but there are things you should know before you decide”

“Pain is transient,” Luna muttered in response, “It wont effect her decision either way.”

Twilight looked over to Luna and blinked. “...Pain?”

Close

Hello all, this is your author speaking
I'm writing this in a chapter entry to make sure it reaches everyone who took the time to read Schism. thank you all very much for your support! Schism was written before the Luna Eclipsed episode as a means for me to toss out my thoughts on Luna, the origins of Equestria, and generally try out playing with the ponyfolks in written form. It was a lot of fun, but between Luna Eclipsed and today's Hearthwarming episode, the vast majority of this entire story has been canonically dismissed. One of the big things I wanted to do with Schism was provide an explanation to the unanswered questions in the show that actually seemed to fit (with a little adult wiggleroom) in the show's setting, using established evidence. Now that many of those situations have actually been addressed by the show itself, I feel its best to shut down Schism and begin something new, rather then...well...beat a dead horse. Ive got some fun ideas for other parts of the show to address and explain that I'll hope you'll enjoy, and my experiences with this story will hopefully make the next one that much better. I hope you'll come have a look at it when I make it! Thank you again!