A silence reigned in the room Applejack was in. As soon as she had entered the room, the castle’s staff was quick to set a cup of tea for her, never mind that she actually didn’t quite like tea. Now she was occupied with sitting on the pillow on the visitor’s side of the table, and lazily gazed at her beverage, waiting for Princess Celestia to appear.
It didn’t take long for the silence to be broken by a sound echoing through the corridor outside the door. As the soft sound gradually became louder, Applejack could already feel her wings twitching in nervous excitement. Applejack knew that there were only two ponies in the entire castle whose walk almost literally sounded ‘powerful’, and Luna wasn’t supposed to be up anymore.
The handle on the door turned, and Applejack already rose from her pillow, ready to extend a greeting and a bow to the princess. “Good mornin’, Princess Celest- Luna? I mean, good mornin’ Princess Luna”
Princess Luna looked a bit surprised at the sudden greeting, and turned to see Applejack bowing. “And a good morning to you, Princess Applejack”, Luna replied with a bow of her own. “I had no idea that this room was occupied.”
They both raised from their bow, before Applejack responded to the question. “I have a meetin’ with Celestia and I was told to wait here. I can find a different room if ya want.”
“Oh, it is no trouble Applejack, we will be but a moment.” Luna said with a slight wave of her hoof, as if literally brushing off AJ’s reply.
“If’n you don’t mind me askin’, aren’t ya supposed to be asleep?”
“Ohohoh, not since we appointed a royal coffee maker,” Luna replied with a laugh. Luna looked through a few closets in the room as she spoke to Applejack. “We now sleep for only four hours each day, and get so much more work done. If only we hadn’t misplaced our joypad.”
“Your joypad, Luna?” Applejack replied with a confused look. “Pardon me, but that don’t exactly sound like workin’.”
Luna tensed up like a deer caught in the headlights, and quickly closed the drawers she was going through. “Anyway, I can see that you’re very busy. I have to go now, bye.” Giving Applejack no chance to respond, Luna hastily ran outside the room, and closed the door behind her with the clip-clop of her hooves echoing through the hall swiftly dying out afterwards.
Applejack sat back down on pillow, surprised by the sudden speed with which Luna disappeared. Her surprise didn’t last long since another faint sound started getting louder, culminating in a knock on the door.
“Uh… enter?” Applejack said, unsure if it was a knock out of courtesy, or if it was actually for asking permission.
The door opened just a crack, before Applejack already noticed the familiarly colored mane behind it. Quickly rising from her pillow, she took a few steps forward to properly greet Celestia. She responded to the greeting in kind, adding a little bow too, just like Luna, before motioning for AJ to sit down.
Celestia walked past Applejack and sat down on her own pillow opposite of her. “So, to what do I thank this visit, Applejack? I assume you’re not here to get served tea you don’t like” she asked as she used her magic to set a cup of tea for herself, with a slight smirk.
“Uh… well, I’m actually here on a personal matter. More specifically, I need to know somethin’ about love.”
A loud choking sound erupted through the room as Celestia did her best in trying to ensure that she didn’t spit out her mouthful of tea. Celestia cleared her mouth as quickly as she could, and after a few coughs, shakily asked: “O-oh, what would you like to know?”
Applejack hadn’t missed anything of what Celestia might have interpreted by her choice of subject, and her eyes opened in fear. “Oh no, princess, nothin’ like that. I’m spoken for, as you know.” She said with a slight blush.
Celestia breathed a mental sigh of relief, and visibly relaxed. “Then, Applejack, what is it I can help you with?”
“Well, ya see, Rainbow and I have been alicorns for little more than a few months now. While Rainbow has been nothin’ but pleased with it, I’ve had some time to think ‘bout it”
Celestia looked at Applejack with a tiny, barely noticeable hint of fear in her eyes. “Applejack, you’re not regretting becoming an alicorn, are you?”
Celestia’s question caught Applejack slightly off guard. “What? No, I mean, I’m glad that we can help with guidin’ Equestria. My question is about the thousands of years that I’ll stay alive that come with it.”
Celestia noticed on AJ’s expression that there was still something she wasn’t saying. Practice made perfect they always said, but that didn’t diminish the fact that Applejack had recently received the title of ‘The Princess of Honesty’.
Celestia rose from her seat and approached Applejack. “I would assume that you were talking about being afraid of Rainbow dying so many years before you, if I didn’t know for certain that Rainbow became an alicorn just like you.” Celestia came to a standstill next to AJ and placed her hoof on her shoulder. “Applejack, what is this about?”
Applejack took a deep breath, and turned to look at Celestia. “Princess, as you know, we Apples have a big family. But what most folks don’t know, is that havin’ a lot of family members who tie the knot, also increased the change ya get at seein’ heartbreak.
“I’ve seen aunts and uncles; grandparents and godparents, I’ve seen them stand next to each other, talking about how much they hated the other. Some got divorced, which sometimes ended in a fight. But some relationships, they ended the worst way of all...” Applejack swallowed as she remembered hearing about her favourite niece dying, and her so called ‘loving husband’ getting sentenced to ten years in prison.
“The thing is, Princess, what all these ponies had in common, was that there weren’t no love anymore.”
Celestia looked as if she was ready to interrupt, but Applejack continued before she had the chance. “Ya know, I was pretty convinced that I’d be able to love Rainbow for as long as I’d live. I’ve seen other folks do it before, and some of them didn’t love each other even half as much as Rainbow and I.” Applejack could feel her eyes stinging, as if begging her to stop talking, but she knew that she had to talk about this with someone.
She took another deep breath, knowing that this part would be the hardest, and continued. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if’n I did something to make Rainbow hate me. But I’m just afraid… Afraid that one day, far in the future, I’ll wake up and not love her anymore. There’s no example, no pony that can assure me by sayin’ that there have been other’s whose love has been able to stand for over a thousand years. A life without Rainbow if meaningless, and if living longer only increases the chance of one of us screwin’ up and breaking our love forever, then I’d rather not live even a year longer.”
Applejack rubbed her eyes, only know noticing that she had started faintly crying. “Ah love her too much to consider one day not lovin’ her anymore,” she finished with a small gasp.
Celestia opened her arms and firmly closed them around Applejack, giving her the hug that just seemed to open the floodgates. She never stopped holding AJ, just stroking her mane until the sobs gradually died down.
For a moment, there was nothing but silence. That silence was soon broken by AJ who said that Celestia could let go of her now. Celestia sheepishly moves her arms back to her side. “Do you feel better, Applejack,” Celestia asked.
“I-I think I do, Princess,” came AJ’s shuddering reply.
“I have to ask, what gave you this negative outlook on your future?” Celestia asked, taking a well-deserved second sip of her now cold tea.
That got somewhat of reaction out of AJ, as she looked slightly startled at being asked that question. “You’re gonna think it’s silly but… it’s because of a book.”
“A book?” Celestia’s curiosity was peaked. She had read almost every book that the Canterlot archives had, and none of them seemed relevant to this subject.
Applejack sniffed a few more times before continuing. “Yeah… It’s actually a history book. It’s about a much respected and very beautiful princess, who was engaged with this fella who was also all kinds of spectacular. The book describes their wedding and some of the stuff after that, but after two hundred years, the guy just disappears. Just gone without a trace, no death note or anythin’.
Celestia could already feel the cold sweat trickling down her neck as AJ continued. “So, I assumed that they must’ve had a fight or somethin’ and that they just stopped talkin’ about him. But then it hit me, they’d been together for over two hundred years and things between them still managed to turn sour. If some fancy ‘real’ princess didn’t even manage it, what hope’s there for me and Rainbow?”
Celestia reacted in a very shocked manner. “Applejack, you’re just as much a princess as me, Luna or the princess you read about, and you’ll be a great princess once you get some experience.”
“But how do ya know? What if this princess in this book was somethin’ like a ‘special’ alicorn and we’re all just copycats?”
“Well, you know, b-b-… because I am the princess from that book,” Celestia finished awkwardly.
Applejack looked as if someone had just suddenly smacked her in the face. “What do you mean, you’re the princess from that book?”
Celestia tried to play it cool, by not making a big deal out of it, lest Applejack asked ever more questions. “Exactly like I said, Applejack. That book is recounting some of my past history.”
“But then… doesn’t that actually prove my point? The book talks about you marrying some guy, and nobody knows his name, meaning something must’ve happened.”
Celestia’s nervousness was showing much more clearly now, and Applejack started picking up on it. “Well, I wouldn’t say he’s exactly unknown…”
Applejack moved forwards as Celestia slowly scrambled backwards. “But then who is he, Princess? What happened that made him suddenly disappear?”
“H-he’s, well, his name is-“
Before Celestia managed to finish her reply, the door of the room smacked open, and Luna’s head peaked inside. “Tiaaaaa, have you seen my joypad.”
“Luna, how nice of you to visit,” Celestia said way too excitedly. “Please join us, I bet Applejack’s interested in hearing all about your ‘gaming’ exploits.
Luna had nearly stepped inside the room when she suddenly saw the look on Celestia’s face. “Oh no, nu-uh, that’s your ‘convenient sister excuse face’. I refuse to be a part of this.” Luna turned back to the corridor, quickly closing the door behind her, leaving Celestia to smack her face with her hoof.
“Princess? What are you hidin’?” came Applejacks tiny voice who felt a bit weird at having just seen the two sisters interact like that.
Having seen her last resort just bolt out of the door, Celestia’s gaze dropped to the ground before she finally answered AJ’s question. “Discord… his name is Discord. And the reason why he suddenly disappears from history books, poems, and the like, was that around that period, his descent into madness started, followed shortly by me and Luna triumphing over him.”
“You were married to Discord?!! Wait, was his name always Discord? And did he always look like that?” Applejack asked as her mind raced with hundreds of questions at this sudden revelation. It’s not every day that you find out that your former sole Princess of Equestria was married to a spirit of chaos.
“Don’t be like that, he’s a dear when he thinks nobody is looking,” Celestia replied with a slight giggle. “But these are questions for another time, as I think that I can actually be off assistance with your current predicament.”
Celestia’s horn lighted up, and a small brown bag poofed into existence. “Because you see, when Discord told me he hated me, I still loved him. When he started twisting the very land to his mad creation, I adored him. Even as the Element of Harmony turned him to stone, I hoped that he would one day be free, so that we could be together again.” She turned the bag over above the table, dumping its contents on it.
Applejack cautiously inspected all the letters and paper that had been thrown on the table, before realizing that they were love letters, and all seemed to have been written by Celestia, to Discord. Upon further inspection, Applejack was surprised to discover that some actually some had Discord as the sender, rather than the recipient. Some actually dated from mere weeks ago.
“Now Applejack, ask yourself. If I could put up with Discord for over two hundred years, do you still doubt that you’re able to keep loving Dash for the rest of your alicorn life?” Celestia said with a knowing smirk on her face.
A similar smile began to reflect on AJ’s face, as she thought of how life with Discord would be, and how glad she was that she wasn’t in her place.
“Applejack, I’m afraid that my time with you has gone and passed, but I want you to remember, you should find your own path in love, not look to the example of others. And next time you want advice like this, you might want to ask Cadance, since she’s… you know, the Princess of love.” Celestia had risen from her seat as she spoke and was now nearly out of the door.
“I will, Princess, and thank you for your help.”
“Always glad to help a fellow pony in love”, Celestia replied as disappeared in the hallway, leaving the door open behind her.
Applejack took one last look back at the room she was seated in, both beverages barely touched, and gave a small satisfying sigh. She turned towards the door, and with a sudden burst of energy, started galloping to the exit, excited at the prospect of returning to her loving wife.
