Nova: The Greatest Gift

Chapters

Prologue: Iridescent
Tarnish
Ember
Steam
Void
Echauffement
Perspective
Refraction
Crescendo
Symbiosis
Inversion
Regression
Catalyst

Prologue: Iridescent

Nova: The Greatest Gift

by FrozenPegasus

Prologue

Wind whipped through the valley, snaking through the long grass, sending ripples through the still water. A white mare watched the setting sun cascade over the distant Canterlot castle, fading beams slowly receding from behind the silhouetted buildings. Her loved one slept quietly at her feet. The gravity of their accomplishment was not lost on her; nothing would ever truly be the same. Emptiness that had clutched at her was gone, dissipated… it was a feeling of completion, of peace. Though the overarching danger had only been delayed in the grand scheme of things, the immediate collapse that her lover had so greatly feared was no longer a possibility. History had not repeated itself, and that alone was a victory. She ran a hoof through the mane of her beloved, caressing her gently.

“Equestria is safe, my love. It’s all over now. I’ll always be by your side.”

The last part wasn’t a lie, not exactly; more akin to a complicated truth. There was no response, of course. The other pony inhaled and exhaled steadily, exhaustion had already taken her from consciousness. Content to let her sleep, the white mare gently ran a hoof through her mane; The sleeping mare's part in this was finished, nopony deserved a rest more than she did. Movement caught her eye, and she turned: a shrouded figure stood on the hill north of the lake, familiar voices echoing eerily in her head.

“Are you ready to fulfill the terms of our agreement?”

Gently, so as not to rouse the pony sleeping beneath her, she stood, eyes fiery, soul proud, pausing only to watch the last glimmer of the sun disappear over the horizon. She had no regrets. Looking down, she kissed the cheek of the sleeping mare gently, echoing words the mare herself had spoken long ago.

‘Never make a promise you can’t keep, right, my love?’

She was ready.

Chapter 1

Rarity’s needle and thread worked diligently into the night. Beauty sleep be damned; there was an extremely important order that needed to be ready by the following morning, and she was committed to meeting the deadline. She let out a long yawn, hoofing the sleep out of her eyes wearily. Normally this kind of pressure was exciting to her; but when her client was nobility, the time crunch became absolutely terrifying. Unfortunately, her client was not only a noble, but a particularly distasteful pony of a most boorish, rude, and uninspiring quality.

“Lady Dar-funk-le,” she said the name aloud, like a child sounding out the syllables of a particularly slimy vegetable. There was nothing in particular Rarity could find to like about her. Perhaps it was just an unfortunate similarity to a certain other pony as the noble mare had managed to remind Rarity in of many ways of Prince Blueblood, and by association, the atrocious behavior he’d displayed at at the Galloping Gala; It was a memory she would much rather forget.

It wasn’t that Rarity showed any degree of favoritism towards one client or the other, it was always her intent to be professional; instead, the issue stemmed from a lack of inspiration. Rarity Belle did not design cookie-cutter dresses, even in her most desperate moment. If that’s what somepony really wanted, they were welcome to help themselves to the nearest department store clearance rack. Instead, she considered herself an artist, each piece ‘divined and designed for the pony in mind.’ But that particular work ethic significantly complicated things when the Pony in mind was so utterly... “blah.”

If the proper mental prerequisites were met, Rarity became a well oiled machine of productive creativity. For example, the first set of dresses she'd designed for her friends were practically effortless. Improvisation and written plans aligned as each mare’s dress came together virtually on the fly. Designing for each friend was simple because she drew from their various auras, loved them, understood them, and from that understanding came inspiration. But the only "aura" that came to mind for Lady Darfunkle was a grey, formless rain cloud in a pout. It wouldn't do at all.

She had tried multiple times to get the other pony to open up with her, putting emphasis on the fact that the interview process was particularly important in the method of conceptualizing the ideal dress to match the customer. It was to no avail as Lady Darfunkle had simply turned her nose up snootily when Rarity asked about her interests, cutting off the interview prematurely with the statement that she ‘simply wasn’t used to making small talk with commoners.’ If there was one single noun used to describe her that would undoubtedly trigger a torrent of fury, it was being referred to as a “commoner.” When Rarity said it herself, it came out as more of an expletive than a descriptive term. So to say the least, Lady Darfunkle had managed to sabotage her designer’s creative process at every possible avenue. But Rarity had always considered herself to be a professional first, an artist second. She had Sweetie Belle to take care of and her parents, whose income was unstable at best.

Grumpily, but steadily, she carried on: the progress was painstakingly slow. Every few moments she would stop, inspect her work, and let out a dissatisfied sigh. If this sort of order with an apathetic client were less commonplace, she could have powered through it, taking it in stride. This was her fourth such order in a row, and the most aggravating client of the sort.

Truth be told, Rarity felt a bit displaced as of late. Her plans to find “the one” had gone completely awry, and she’d discovered at the same time that the more “elegant life” wasn’t necessarily the one she was suited for. On the opposite end of the spectrum, her friends didn’t quite ‘get’ her either. She appreciated their support after the debacle with Hoity Toity, but really, it was just that: support. They hadn’t liked the dresses, they had simply supported her effort, mostly in apology for the prior disaster.

Their collective support had won back the attentions of the Fashion Guru, but she simply wasn’t a one mare sewing factory. He wanted twenty copies of each dress within a week! To her credit, she had actually survived the schedule both that week and the week following at the high cost of nearing a nervous breakdown. She couldn’t blame him for being pushy with her, but when he demanded she either stop falling behind or sell him the designs, a rift was inevitable. Though she might have not been able to keep up with the demand, trying to bully her into selling the designs was unwise. He may as well have asked her to throw in her actual friends as a group package.

Selling dresses based on her friends was one thing; she took pride in her dresses as well as her friends, and the fact that ponies wanted to buy them was a compliment to both model and seamstress. But forcing her to give them up all together, to allow some other pony to make a dress based only on the logistics of the design, without a thought to the character and soul that laid behind it was a horrifying proposition to the seamstress. That was the crossroads on which her and Hoity Toity parted ways, neither particularly happy with the circumstances but unable to reach a compromise.

The dress was grey, and almost rebelliously common looking. But it was wrapped and gently interwoven with a white silver thread, giving it a randomly reflective quality meant to imitate the moon peeking through the clouds. Rarity had taken Ms. Darfunkle’s somewhat rounded gut into account. The other mare had been sucking in through the measurements, but Rarity had come to expect this from similarly pompous and plump ponies. She tapered it in the back, making sure the dress would drape flatteringly around her client’s somewhat large waist and flank.

She placed bows, lining the natural cloth belt, but... it was still missing that special something. Groaning inwardly, she realized what it was; she needed garnets, and not just any simple garnets would do: grape garnets, ones that would match the sun as it was half risen on the horizon. Of course, she had just been on a gem finding expedition that had discovered such garnets. Nearly perfect specimens, and extremely uncommon in that particular shape. But to give them to her?

As much as her inner self would like to whine, when Rarity realized what she needed to do to complete her artistic vision of a piece, she simply could not do it a injustice. She stood, stretching her forelegs with another high-pitched yawn, trotted to the back of the boutique to retrieve the garnets. Carefully, she mounted them in tiny gray holders around the collar.

“And... done!” She looked at the dress with pride. Considering how little she had to work with, it had turned out swimmingly. "not perfect, of course, but it will do for now."

She looked over to the grandfather clock by the window: 5am, she was on schedule. She was just about to go back to her workspace to clean up, but out of the corner of her eye she saw a flash of familiar lavender. Rubbing her eyes with a hoof, she looked again, at first worried she might be hallucinating from sleep deprivation. "No, that is most definitely real. Twilight Sparkle is sitting in the fountain, outside, at five in the morning."

***

Twilight sipped on the freshly brewed cocoa, uncharacteristically silent. Rarity had beckoned her inside, and practically had to towel Twilight off herself, much to the irritation of the purple unicorn. Uncharacteristically short of words, all she had said when Rarity inquired about her ‘peculiar’ behavior was "...The spa was closed..."

Poor thing. It was almost like her friend was in shock. She grabbed a quilt that was hung on the luxury sofa, draping it around Twilights shoulders. The lavender mare smiled in appreciation, but immediately returned to whatever thought process she was lost in.

Rarity really didn't mind. It was far too late to go to bed and risk sleeping late, possibly missing Lady Darfunkle's appointment. It was also too early to start preparing for the appointment: Unfortunately the awkward allocation of hours was all too commonplace, only made tolerable through patience and learned flexibility. So Twilight’s company didn’t hurt, and more importantly, her friend was obviously distressed. She took a shot in the dark. "So... are things not well with Celestia dear?"

Twilight's head whipped around, attention completely focused on Rarity for the first time, "Why? Have you heard something? Have people been talking-" she stopped. as Rarity shook her head, confused by the sudden clairvoyance. "how did you-?”

The white mare cleared her throat. "While I do hate to bring it up, I seem to remember a certain town wide conflict that occurred over ‘Mr. Smarty Pants’ the last time you looked this upset, and your concerns about Celestia were at the root of that little escapade. It was simply a guess."

Twilight sighed, sipping the hot cocoa and setting it down with a jittery resignation. "I went to Canterlot today to check up on things. I was worried about the Princess. Her responses to my recent letters seemed slower than usual, and then I heard later that Luna gave the speech at the Natural Museum of Pony History opening two days ago; something has definitely been off."

"Are you sure she wasn't just trying to give Luna more royal responsibilities in general?" Rarity frowned.

"Certain. Luna hates doing small events where she has to mingle afterward, so Princess Celestia tries to field most of those herself.”

"What happened when you went to visit?"

The lavender mare looked down at her hooves, biting her lip. "The guards wouldn't let me in."

Rarity almost dropped the cup. "Wh-a, really?" As the favored student of Celestia herself, for Twilight to be turned away at the gates was practically unbelievable.

She twiddled her hooves awkwardly, still looking down. "Yeah. That's pretty much what I said. After I, um-... May or may not have threatened to stand there until they offered me an explanation. I almost instantly received a letter from Celestia the moment I was back at the library. It said, 'Twilight Sparkle, my faithful student. You still have much to learn from me, but for now, I need you to take some time to learn about the powers of independence. Make sure to write me weekly updates." She crossed her forelegs, eyebrows furrowed, "complete blowoff right?"

Rarity suppressed the laugh just in time. This obviously meant a lot to her, but seeing Twilight so indignant towards her typically revered mentor was undeniably amusing. "Possibly. Probably." She could almost see the gears in her friend's head begin to turn with conspiracy theories, and decided it might be best to balance out her opinion a bit. "...But you know, she could very well just want you to work in studies independently. You do rely on her most of the time dear."

The other mare glared at her for the suggestion but relented, considering the possibility. "I guess I have been a little needy. There might be nothing going on. She was overly vague when she told me to make friends here in Ponyville, and that wound up being incredibly important. That was the beginning of everything."

Rarity checked the clock: two hours until the appointment. That was plenty of time to make sure Twilight got home alright (and potentially save the purity of any fountains/large bird baths adjacent to the path.) Regardless of the concerning topic of discussion, the company of her friend had cheered her tired spirits. Cautious optimism began to creep into her outlook. Maybe Ms. Garfunkle won’t be so bad after all.

***

"Absolutely ABYSMAL!" Ms. Garfunkle practically spat, feathered hat waggling wildly with her speech. "Never in all my years have I paid money to be offered such lackluster drivel!"

The goofy "I made this for you, isn’t it pretty?" look disappeared off of the designer mare's face almost instantly. Dramatic and demanding clients were nothing new, but this one was more dramatic than most, borderline hysterical. The stout, barrel appearance of one "Lady" Garfunkle was practically throwing a tantrum, and it was all Rarity could do to minimize the collateral damage. Her face turned grim, like a war-pony who’d just received word that reinforcements would not be arriving in time. “What exactly do you not like about it?” she asked, her voice even.

“What do I not like? WHAT DO I NOT LIKE? I wanted something to match my coat and mane! This drab color doesn’t go with either! Just my luck that I’d be referred to the ONLY COLOR BLIND SEAMSTRESS IN ALL OF EQUESTRIA.” Lady Garfunkle continued her little tirade, forelegs pinwheeling in the air.

It was almost unbearable for the seething white mare to keep from lashing back, and stating that only a color-blind designer could find something to match her clashing olive green coat and dull pink mane. She had chosen grey because it didn’t have the stigma of black, and didn’t clash like most of the lighter colors would with the problematic coat/mane combination. But apparently that hadn’t been good enough for Ms. Garfunkle.

“And what the hay are these? Absolutely preposterous!” The ungrateful mare snatched one of the grape shaped garnets from their holders, staring at it incredulously. “How gaudy, how utterly tasteless!” Rarity was literally chewing on her on lip now. Garnets of that variety were not cheap, but she hadn’t added a single extra bit to the bill because the revision had occurred after they’d already agreed on a price: the gems had been her own personal touch, and it felt like a gift was being thrown back in her face. Why did things always seem to turn out like this? Suddenly she was trying to blink back tears.

The door slammed open. “WE WOULD LIKE TO KNOW, WHO DARES INSULT THE FAVORED TAILOR OF THE COURT?” Both Rarity and Lady Garfunkle jumped in tandem; the royal Canterlot voice was likely to have awoken the entire village. In the small enclosed shop it was absolutely overpowering. Luna trotted into the Boutique, the picture of poise and grace, right up to Lady Garfunkle who stumbled backwards; The alicorn had obviously overheard most of the conversation. “DOTH THOU THINK HER TASTE IN GARMENTS IS SUPERIOR TO CELESTIA HERSELF? DOTH THY PETTY YEARS AND PORTLY RUMP, GIVE THOU A VIEWPOINT SUPERIOR TO THE TRUE ROYALTY WHO HAS REIGNED FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS???”

Rarity had no clue what was happening, or what Luna was talking about. She was, however, enjoying the sight of the previously snobby Lady Garfunkle now down on her knees before the night princess, blubbering her apologies. Luna dropped the stern look for a moment and grinned at Rarity, touching a hoof to her mouth to make the universal “shhhh” signal. “WHY ART THOU PROSTRATING THYSELF BEFORE US, MORTAL, FOR IT WAS NOT OUR WORK THOU GRIEVOUSLY INSULTED. APOLOGIZE TO THAT ONE, AND ACKNOWLEDGE HER AS YOUR BETTER.”

Lady Garfunkle did as she was told, now blubbering at the white mare’s hooves, and Rarity had to literally hold a hoof over her mouth to keep from laughing. She couldn’t say she had ever seen a noble scurry before, but that’s what Lady Garfunkle did, promptly handing over the bits she owed (plus a generous tip), and bolting terrified out the door. The moment the disgraced noble was out of earshot, boisterous laughter exploded in the boutique

***

If she had known one of the Co-Rulers of Equestria would be touring her shop, Rarity would have done a fair amount of scurrying herself. Now, in the aftermath of the moment and the emotional rollercoaster that preceded it, she wasn’t intimidated by the princess at all. There was respect, of course, but the layer of fear that had been there on Nightmare Night was completely gone.

“We could not believe that she actually tried to kiss your hooves.” Luna said, still giggling.

“OOooooh I know! and did you see the way her eyes bugged out when you came in? That entrance was positively spectacular. And when you told her she insulted the preferences of Celestia herself, I thought she might have a heart attack right there!” Rarity held a hoof to her ribs and wiped mirthful tears from her eyes. “It was really too much.” She looked over at the dress rack sadly, replacing the garnet that had been so rudely plucked from its holder. She didn’t even take it with her. Humorous as it might have been, for Luna to appear anywhere during the day was extremely uncommon, especially first thing in the morning. Her curiosity was piqued: “So what can I do for you Princess Luna? Anything, anything at all. You got me out of a bind and I’d love to make it up to you.”

She turned and started- Luna was suddenly standing next to her, staring at the dress. “Why do we recognize this? It is the strangest sensation of familiarity.”

It took her a few moments to realize why, but then the answer was obvious “Oh um... -” this was going to be awkward. “I sometimes draw inspiration from nature... it just so happened that I’d been working on this since last night.”

“The moon shining through medium cloud cover, shimmering through the clouds, tiny oblong gems to represent the sun slowly approaching the horizon and chasing away the night. Specifically, last night. How uncanny. Perhaps you can resize this dress for an Alicorn.” Rarity blinked: Luna had hit the nail on the head. Luna turned to her and smiled knowingly. “My work involves a large amount of attention to detail as well, which is often overlooked by the ignorant.”

“That’s probably why she came to my defense so quickly” Rarity understood.

“May I take you up on your offer to do something in return?” Luna asked, her tone turning more somber.

“Of course, shall I gather the others as well?” Rarity asked. She doubted it had anything to do with her specifically, but was caught off guard when Luna shook her head.

“No, this is a matter for you and you alone. The situation requires the utmost secrecy, and you’ll be required to reside in the palace for an allotment of time. We realize this is not a small request, which is why it is merely voluntary, and we will understand if you are not able to fulfill it.” Luna paused, looking around the shop. “We realize that you have a business and life here, and thereby will compensate you fully for your cooperation. You can name your own rate, as they say. I know it’s a bit vague. But...” she gestured around the room, “I can at least tell you it’s something that certainly lays within your field. You would still be relevant to your industry... you could even say you’d be at it’s peak.”

Rarity found the words to be absolutely tantalizing. She thought back to what Luna had said in bluff to Lady Garfunkle, and her heart fluttered a bit, wondering if there was any possible fraction of truth to it. Putting the fantasy aside for a moment, she looked back around at the Boutique. There was never any doubt that she loved her shop, but lately she’d begun to feel trapped in it. Earnings from the castle would more than cover the rent on the building, and if what Luna had said was true, she would be able to come back whenever she needed to.

Well, what’s the worst that could happen? I go, do something fashion related at the castle, get paid, and come back. It’s practically a vacation. She thought about Twilight’s experience, and curiosity overrode any other concerns. It was settled. Opportunities like this didn’t come every day.

“Let me just pack my things.”

Author’s Note: I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of my first fic. A friend of mine said doing a Rarity/Celestia epic was impossible, and thus a wager was formed. But, post break-up, vodka, and viewing of Benjamin Button, I was struck by some really good ideas. I’ll be continuing my other projects as well, but this is much more light in tone than my other short story, so having the balance between the two will be nice. Constructive criticism is always welcome

Tarnish

Chapter 2: Tarnish

Rarity was about to explode from a combination of happiness and curiosity. The fashionista had said various goodbyes to her friends who had been sad to see her go, but supportive, mostly thanks to the cover story Luna had created for her. She was going to be "accompanying Sapphire Shores on tour as the official on hand fashion advisor and stylist.” She was surprised to hear it, but the pop star pony was a close friend of the royalty and had agreed to corroborate the story if needed.

Despite numerous subtle proddings for information, Luna had remained steadfast that Celestia be the one to fill her in on her “task.” It was all a bit much to believe; She had a significant amount of creative skill, yes, but what could she do for a Princess other than tailoring and designs? Her magic was fairly weak, and she doubted the Princess needed her gem finding abilities considering the much fabled wonders of the treasury.

She couldn’t help but think of her first one on one encounter with the princess, and how she had acted much the way that Lady Darfunkle had treated Luna. She face-hoofed, not particularly enjoying the embarrassing memory now playing on loop in her head. ‘What in Equestria could she be thinking, hiring me after that outlandish display? I’ll have to take the chance for granted and make up for lost time. No prostrating, no bowing, no flank kissing. Be cool, calm, and professional Rarity.’

The chariot landed with a thud. Trotting alongside Luna, she felt her heart give way: even though she had seen it before the castle was breathtaking, the architecture truly unmatched. It continued to dazzle her every time she saw it. They entered through a heavy wooden side door and continued down the hallway, following several turns and passing a few guard checkpoints. Over time, she began to notice that something was different. There was a different air, a foreboding atmosphere to the place. The various servants and workers all looked rather ill at ease, and where there was friendly chatter and smiles previously, now there was stony silence. Everypony looked inexplicably worried, or uncomfortable. The farther in they walked, the more the strangely oppressive atmosphere began to solidify.

After a brief hesitation, Luna pulled her aside. “Hold on a moment. There’s something I should mention...” she paused, struggling for the proper words. “-Celly is going to be quite a bit different than what you’re expecting. She’s quite a bit different in private when her star pupil isn’t around. Be prepared for her to try and sidetrack you, and watch her carefully. If she pokes fun at you, feel free to poke back. She’s looking for an aide who can keep pace with her, not a servant. Pay attention to the little details about her that seem off. Any small physical flaws you’ll need to take into account, because they’ll look a hundred times worse on camera, and the last thing we need right now is a media scandal. That’s a big part of the job, handling public relations and appearances.“

“I See.” She didn’t, not really. Rarity was still so busy trying to absorb the implication that Celestia was in some sort of weakened state, nearly missing the rest of the sentence which only served to further confuse her. It had become glaringly obvious from Luna’s vagueness that the only full answers she was going to get would have to come straight from the source. Moments later, a light pink mare, no more than a few years older than herself, exited the princess’ chambers. The mare practically bolted past them, embarrassment written all over her face, her servant’s outfit and mane askew.

‘Well, that doesn’t bode well...’

There must have been a perfectly rational explanation. Remembering the advice to focus on the fine details, she placed her reddish-orange glasses on the bridge of her snout. Time to get serious. Princess Celestia’s chambers were dark, the curtains drawn shut. Water was running in the washroom. Rarity could vaguely make out the outline of the over sized bed, illuminated by a single lamp near the door. Calm began to cave into anxiety.

“Celly, our guest is here.” Luna called out.

Celestia reentered her chambers from the adjoining washroom, telekinetically combing her mane. “Welcome back to the castle, my little pony.” She smiled at the alabaster mare, but just as Rarity was about to rush forward to greet her, something held her back. Years of learning the ins and outs of the upper class had made Rarity an excellent judge of body language. The most basic rule of thumb was that in the beleaguering false niceties so common in high society, words were rarely the sum of their syllables. Seeing through the underlying motivations behind them was key to avoiding being blindsided. What she saw then in Celestia was the last thing she had expected. Her welcoming words became completely different in the context; The princess’ tone, body language, and eye-contact were unmistakably predatory. Rarity’s heart skipped a beat, and she emotionally distanced herself, appreciative of Luna’s warning.

“Thank you so much for having me Princess. I will do my best to assist you in whatever capacity you require.” The reply seemed a bit cold, but she was merely trying to establish herself as a professional.

“Rarity, dear, and here I was half expecting you to kiss my feet for the entirety of the first meeting. Seems like you’ve matured quite a bit since we last met.” Her voice was both dry and just a hint sensual. Rarity’s cheeks flushed red at the memory. The Princess was playing dirty.

“I’m not above such acts of loyalty of course, princess, but I assumed the servant pony who escaped the pleasure of your company only moments ago would have already satisfied your appetite for more physical boon.” The retort practically came out on it’s own, but out of the corner of her eye, she realized Luna was staring at her absolutely dumbfounded. When it registered what she had just implied, she wanted to melt into the marble floor below in horror. Never in her life had she been so rude to royalty, or even nobility.

‘I just called the Princess of Equestria a filly-fooler!’

…But recanting the statement now would just make it worse. So she waited for the reaction. To her surprise, there was just a long, gentle laugh. For a moment, Celestia actually looked like herself. But only for that moment. Whatever bizarre game they were playing resumed. she circled the Fashionista in what could only be described as a saunter.

“Well yes, it might be true that I’ve acquired a mild attraction to certain pastel shades of pony, but it’s only the refraction of white light that allows those colors to exist, is it not? So if anything, it’s impossible to appreciate them without appreciating that luminous white light given form” Something about the voice was hypnotic. Rarity felt the alicorn’s magic rustle her mane, sending a chill up her spine. “especially when it's form is such a pleasant one.”

The complement hit its mark: Rarity felt woozy, her thoughts conflicted.
‘Oh wow... thats really nice- NO! NO RARITY YOU PROMISED NOT TO MAKE A FOOL OF YOURSELF THIS TIME, CONCENTRATE!!!’

She was halfway through stuttering a lame retort that the Princess was just singing her own praises, due to the similarities of their coats when she trailed off.

The fine details Luna had told her to look for were suddenly all too apparent. The darkness of the room, in addition to the alicorn’s near endless diplomatic experience had almost blinded her to it completely, but now it was plain as day. The tell-tale sign of ribs pressing against skin, jutting joints, baggy eyes, and unsteady breathing. A slight wince that accompanied small, barely noticeable hesitations in her otherwise normal gait. The regal alicorn’s usual level of perfection made the blemishes stand out even more. She was most certainly not as well as she was putting on, and Rarity felt something akin to sorrow. Her emotions must have slipped through, because Celestia’s sly smile thinned a bit, as she searched the designer mare’s eyes for her thoughts.

Rarity dropped the mask of unflappability, abandoning the playful banter. “Why?” she pleaded, the single word saturated with an anxiety she could no longer ignore.

Celestia's smile disappeared. “What exactly are you asking, Rarity?”

“Well, I suppose the question main question would be why me and not Twilight? Better yet, why not both me and Twilight? I can help in hiding the problem Princess, but I am not a doctor, nor am I particularly adept at magic. If-”

“I am well aware of your abilities.” The temperature in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees with the icy reply. It was all Rarity could do not to shrink back. She wanted to push, ask again, but the sudden shift in mood was such a departure from the previous tone of conversation made it feel like she had already committed an egregious faux pas in the mere act of voicing the question.

The seamstress took a deep breath. “Princess Celestia, I’m very unsettled seeing you in your current state, and I’ve only known you for close to three years-”

“Exactly.” There was fire in Celestia’s eyes now, the single word stopping Rarity’s train of thought. She spoke quickly, but emphatically, “You’ve known me for only three years Rarity Belle, but still your heart saddens. Tell me, element of generosity, with your newfound expertise in ethics; If you knew you were sick, but had no clue what it was, would you tell your dear sister Sweetie about it? So she could worry herself endlessly, without even knowing if the nature of ailment was serious?

Rarity was taken aback by the outburst. “Well, no, I suppose I wouldn’t-”

But Celestia wasn’t done yet. “If the only medical book you had pertained exclusively to dragons, would you lend it to her? Let her obsess over it on the impossible notion that you might have somehow acquired something not even native to your species? To ensure she would spend every waking moment for the duration of your illness, combing it over, on the infinitesimal chance that she might actually find something? Would you actually be so cruel as to subject her to that?”

“...no...” The reply was a whisper.

Luna stepped forward and nuzzled her sister gently. “...She gets it Celly.”

Princess Celestia sighed, and suddenly looked very tired. Retreating to a set of lounge chairs in the middle of the room, she indicated for Rarity to sit across from her. She touched her hoof to her forehead, as if to ward off an incoming headache. Rarity obliged and took a seat, staring at the floor as if trying to count the number of fibers in the plush red carpet.

“I’m sorry, my little pony. I’ve been unable to interact with the public for a while now, and I’ve grown restless. Being confined to my own weaknesses is not something I particularly enjoy. You were not the intended recipient of my ire.” The voice was softer now, more familiar, and the unicorn looked up, nodding in understanding; Unpleasant as it may have been, Celestia using Sweetie Belle as an example had put things in perspective for her.

Celestia continued, “Twilight is Twilight. If left to her own devices then she can generally take care of herself. But if she gets stuck, she takes it personally, and lets it consume her. Try as she might, she won’t find anything regarding the Alicorn as a species, because there is nothing. At most she’d be spending years, maybe even decades chasing legends and theological hearsay, wasting her life on a lost cause.”

She waved off Rarity’s alarmed look, “Not because this illness is necessarily serious, but because almost everything prior to three thousand years ago was destroyed. It’s too long ago for Luna or I to remember any specifics, but we remember a great fire that scoured the earth. If there were any other alicorns, or information about alicorns, it was almost certainly destroyed then. I’ve never been sick before, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything to a being with an unlimited lifespan.” She chucked, “or unlimited as far as we can tell. Relatively speaking, I could simply be on the verge of my first century-long cold.”

“And even if you told her all that, it wouldn’t keep her from trying.” Rarity finished, thoughtfully.
She may have felt like Celestia was still holding something back, but she couldn’t object to the underlying logic. Limited as her ability might have been, she was familiar to the rules of magic. Moderation in all things. If she didn’t limit herself, blindly trying to use magic to do something far outside of her ability, there was a good chance of it backfiring, harming her, and potentially anyone around her. For a unicorn of Twilight’s magic potential... she shuddered, thinking of the repercussions.

“I understand Princess. It was improper for me to doubt your judgement.”

She wrinkled her nose at the title, “It’s ‘Celestia’ in private Rarity, and I was upset, but not at you. You’re to be both a seamstress and my only aide; In a way, it will be your responsibility to question both my appearance and my judgement in order to either cover physical problems or personal slips. You’ll never have to apologize for that.”

Rarity leaned forward, her smile slightly strained, “And I am endlessly grateful for the opportunity, Princes- sorry, Celestia. Could I see the tools and resources I’ll be working with? I’m extremely excited, and want to get started as soon as possible.” Rarity’s claim was a bit of a falsehood. Okay it was a big falsehood. Maybe even a ‘I’m composed in the outside, but on the inside I’m trotting around in a circle screaming in terror’ kind of falsehood.

“Right to business, I like it! Luna would you mind giving her the rest of the tour? I’m feeling a bit nauseous.”

The blue Alicorn grunted unhappily. Rarity turned to follow her. It seemed like Celestia was going to depend on her so much more directly than she had expected. She needed to get her hooves into her work, yes, but more so needed to get some space to herself, in order to absorb everything. It was a ton of information to just take into stride. Hopefully the somewhat ‘different’ version of Celestia that she’d seen initially was a complete fabrication...

“Oh, and Rarity? Your room is a bit far away from the heater, so it could get rather cold at night. If it does, we can always share.” The princess had laid on the bed and propped herself up on one foreleg, the other patting the mattress next to her suggestively.

‘Noooope. I spoke too soon’ Rarity flushed bright red, muttered her thanks and turned to leave with the Night Princess, almost literally pushing a very sleepy and lethargic Luna towards the door. Outside, as they passed a window, the unicorn and alicorn groaned in tandem. They had apparently talked for hours, as the sun had almost set. The closed curtains in the room had made it impossible to estimate the time. Rarity tried to think about everything but Celestia’s suggestion, while beside her, Luna frowned at the thought of having to put up the stars soon, then deal with her responsibilities at court the following morning; She wondered glumly if she would ever actually be able to sleep again

Author’s note:Just in case anyone’s panicking at the possible appearance of ‘molestia’: Firstly, she’s not, I promise. She’s under the weather, has always played the PERFECT role model in public for a couple thousand years, so it makes sense that she’d let her hair down a bit behind closed doors. I actually had to rewrite this entire chapter, because in the first version where she was all philosophical and world-weary, I was 90% finished, only to realize that the ‘boo-hoo I’m depressed and immortal’ is a bit overdone. There will be echoes of that, I think, but in moderation.
Also, I think I’ve decided this won’t be clop. I don’t mind it being suggested, implied, or talked about, and might even consider writing a oneshot “deleted scene” later on, but it’s become a bit too personal of a story for me to do that to. Like tearing up while writing the outline level of personal T-T. Alcohol + Writing = emotional train wreck. Anyway, speaking of the outline, about 5 of 40-ish plot points hit so far. Constructive criticism is always welcome.

Ember

Chapter 3: Ember

The alabaster mare slipped behind the curtain out into the night and nearly stumbled, heart racing. Good, she hadn’t been followed. Wiping a bead of perspiration from her brow, she looked down at her dress and swore: so beautiful only hours ago, now it was almost as big of a mess as her special somepony for the night, the “illustrious” Prince Blueblood had turned out to be. This had officially been the WORST, NIGHT, EVER. It couldn’t possibly get any worse. She noticed a spot where the dirty slip had touched the pricey mauve fabric. Rubbing at it frantically with no avail, she swore again
“Oh For Celestia’s sake-!”

“I never really have understood why Ponies started saying that.” The voice was wistful, reminiscent, and entirely unmistakable.

Rarity froze. Apparently, this night COULD actually get worse. She looked up slowly: The alicorn’s back was to her, but the horn, wings, and shimmering mane was unmistakable. On the edge of the platform was the Pony whose name she had so thoughtlessly taken in vain. Kneeling, frustration and emotion over took her. “M-M-M-My sincerest apologies, Princess Celestia I-“

Celestia held up a hoof without turning, and the alabaster cut off in mid sentence, fearing the worse.
“Please- rise. Don’t ruin your dress on my account.”

Standing, Rarity looked down at the dress disdainfully
“It’s a bit late for that, I fear”

“Nonsense. And I came out here to escape the party myself, so it’s not like I stand in any position to judge you.” She said, absent-mindedly tossing what looked like a few pellets into the fountain. Curiously, she did it by hoof, rather than magic. She beckoned to the alabaster mare.
“Would you like to meet a dear old friend of mine?”

Intrigued, Rarity trotted forward, curious of what was in the water that held the Princess’ attention. The decorative pool shimmered, illuminating light. Shapes moved under the surface. An amusing, tiny scaled face surfaced, beady eyes with a wide open mouth, beckoning for food. It was decidedly not elegant. But as she had been so thoroughly reminded throughout night, sophistication was often overrated. She smiled in delight. “What a beautiful fish pond!”

“Her name is Persephone.” Celestia smiled, indicating a white and orange splotched Koi, “and today is her 176th birthday. Well, not her actual birthday of course. The anniversary of when she was presented to me as a gift, at a galloping gala not unlike this one.” Splitting the remaining pellets, she levitated half to Rarity.

Rarity’s jaw dropped. She had heard that certain types of fishcould live for an extended period of time, but over a hundred years? Tossing a few pellets to the koi, she noticed how slow its reactions were. It was possibly the slowest fish she’d ever seen, and at least partially blind. She actually had to use a tiny bit of magic to push the pellet towards it before the smaller fish could snatch it away; It was probably nearing the end of its lifespan. Sadness struck her as she realized this silly little fish might be Celestia’s only living tie to a long forgotten era.

“What’s been bothering you tonight, my little pony?”
Celestia was now looking at her curiously, waiting for an answer. Rarity bit her, lip, she couldn’t possibly, but- suddenly all the frustration she felt from earlier welled back up, coming out in a torrent of words.

“I was so sure Prince Blueblood and I would be a match; we seemed so perfect for each other. I can’t get over how terribly wrong I was. I was so ready to be in love with him, with that-…” She trailed off, realizing that following the sentiment much further would be insulting to the Princess.

Celestia smiled, her eyes wrinkling merrily. “We’re not closely related you know. Not even slightly. Half the court refers to him as the ‘Royal Ass’ behind his back anyway.”
After a small fit of giggles, Celestia turned back to the pond, her expression indistinguishable. “I will tell you that in the handful of relationships I have indulged in the last millennium, two ponies being ‘perfect’ for each other is usually an excellent indication that a relationship will fail. There has to be some degree of contrast, a gap to bridge, if you will, that serves as a foundation for the relationship. If there is a mutual willingness to bond, sacrifice, to give up a part of yourself for the sake of another person without any guarantee of reciprocity, that’s when you know you have something worth holding on to.” The princess’ eyes had glazed over sadly, her words holding a wisp of untold tragedy.

Rarity was grateful for the surrounding darkness, because as Celestia had spoken something within her had begun to stir. It was confusing, a fire in her blood. A burning sensation in her chest that radiated outwards through the rest of her body. She tossed the last pellet in the pond, and Persephone accepted the offering gratefully. This was a part of Celestia she had never seen; the princess wasn’t addressing her as she would a student or a subject … with that overwhelming air of benevolent kindness. There was no mask at all. During that fleeting moment she seemed so much more real.

***

The alabaster mare awoke with a start, body glistening from perspiration. The sun had not yet come up. Celestia had not been joking about the room; she had layered as many blankets on top of herself as possible to fight off the cold, but naturally this was counter-productive, causing her to eventually overheat. She sighed, kicking them off. The memory came to her as a dream often, but always left her like this, awake and unrested. It was far too early, but she already wanted to go back to her work.
The first few days had gone by in an instant: Luna had allowed her into the royal armoire. Deceptively named, it was not so much a cabinet as it was a massive, banquet hall sized vault underground, protected by magic. Rows and rows of perfectly preserved royal clothing from the last 500 years, some even older. There were high quality dresses nearly as far as the eye could see. Luna introduced her to Jeb, the “keeper” of the armoire. He was an earth stallion, who despite his snobby disposition, handlebar mustache, and gender, somehow still reminded her eerily of Pinkie. This impression was further reinforced when she later called out a question to him from across the room, certain that she had seen him at his desk mere seconds before, and was rudely instructed from a voice directly behind her to “stop shouting in the armoire.” After that little incident, she decided he was creepy, but helpful. After a short time, she noticed that Luna had disappeared.

To be fair, Luna had not actually disappeared: Still in the room, the princess of the night had spied several scarves that looked suspiciously like blankets, and a jacket that looked suspiciously like a pillow. She did the only responsible thing she could: deciding to test these duplicitous objects for treachery in a nearby dimly lit corner, which bore an inexplicable resemblance to an excellent place for a nap. She would decide their fate when she was conscious again.

The walls were lined with mirrors, backed with ornate stained mahogany, but Rarity barely spared a glance in their direction. Not even the faint sound of snoring could distract her from this true bounty at hand, so many classics she had always wanted to see, complicated designs, beautiful gem work. Subconsciously she knew she’d probably been behaving like a filly in a candy shop, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

Several dozen inspections later, a number of nagging questions were raised in the back of her head, though they did nothing to curb her elation. She found a section of the armoire that housed the most ‘modern’ of the dresses; styles she gauged were about 200 years old. But after that the designs just stopped. More intriguing was that a large number of the more recent selections appeared to have been designed by the same pony. She discovered the signature on the inseam; a tiny yellow circle, accompanied by the words ‘ab origne.’ She didn’t recognize the language, but discovered that almost all of the dresses in the more modern selection shared it. The signature definitely supported the theory that this portion of the armoire was done by a single designer.

‘But that can’t be right… there’s literally hundreds of designs, this would take decades…’ The realization was dizzying, emotional. She was looking at a single designer’s entire life’s work. Almost everything, if not everything she had ever created was lovingly stored, set apart from the rest in this section of the armoire. There was a chronology to it: designs increasing in complexity to the point of almost being too busy, until dropping off into a more minimalistic style. Whoever this designer was, Rarity would have very much liked to meet her. The work was gorgeous.

“I see you found Aria’s work.” A snobby voice said out of nowhere. Rarity started, she put a hoof to her chest for a moment, willing her heart to slow down while she glared at Jeb in irritation.

“Must you insist on doing that?” she asked, with no attempt to hide her annoyance

“Doing what?” he asked, rather clueless.
‘He really is like pinkie…’

“Just- Never mind. Since you’ve so flagrantly volunteered yourself, tell me about this designer.”

He flipped through the various designs, as if to insure they retained their proper order. “I can’t say I know much about her. The royal seamstress, held in high regard by the princesses. Hard as it may be for you to believe, there’s not much hearsay on a subject two centuries old.”

Rarity ignored the sarcasm. She had always assumed the princesses simply commissioned a designer when they needed something new. “I’ve never heard any mention of a Royal Seamstress at all, ever.”

He shrugged “Because she was the last. Her replacement was never appointed. Allegedly, Celestia refused to even consider looking for one.”
Sighing, he pushed his glasses up on his nose. “I hope you have the hooves to fill the horseshoes you’re stepping into.”

Years of training in manners were the only thing that kept her from flipping him an obscene hoof gesture. She was confused enough and still trying to sort things out, the last thing she needed was wanton advice from this buffoon. How lovely. If ever a pony the complete and polar opposite of Pinkie existed, she had managed to find it: The anti-Pinkie.
‘There’s over two weeks until the hearts and hooves festival. No pressure, no pressure at all’

Suddenly, she struck by a brilliant idea; a smile spread across her face, “I don’t have to fill her horseshoes, not at all.” She grabbed five different dresses off different sections of the rack, despite Jeb’s shrieking in protest, placing them on the ground. The styles were outdated, yes; practically speaking they would have been useless as reference to anyone else. But she felt a kinship with this ‘Aria.’ If the context of extra frills, high necks, and other oddities of the time period were subtracted, the composition process of the pieces were remarkably similar to her own: This was someone who gleaned inspiration from both her surroundings and client. Rarity saw classical parallels between at least a dozen of Aria’s early dresses to her own, as well as items from the middle of her career. Their progression was, in essence, extremely similar. She resisted the urge to cackle. It was almost like cheating fate: a borderline unfair looking glass she could use, potentially gaining an enormous amount of insight from Aria’s final works; Rarity’s magic manipulated a pen furiously against her sketchpad. Hours stretched on, and her horn began to hurt, but she paid it no heed. Time was irrelevant. She refused to let the feeling go, even for an instance, for fear it would escape her grasp

It was the exact same feeling she had as a filly, when she discovered the potential for gems in design. Several times she even heard someone approach, probably Jeb, and say something, but she paid no mind. For the moment, at least, she was no longer a member of the outside world. This was it, the elusive high that every artist strove for: Creative Epiphany.

Rarity was going to scorch the sun.

***

AN: Alright. The story is definitely picking up momentum now. And don’t worry, while this chapter was mostly character building for Rarity there will be a lot more Celestia stuff coming up soon. Also, I believe the idea of a narcoleptic Luna is beginning to grow on me. Definitely some editing and hopefully another chapter (maybe even 2!) coming up this weekend.

Steam

Chapter 4: Steam

“Ooooh PRINCESS? WHERE… ARE… YOU…?” The singsong call was eerie, laced with sadistic intent

Celestia thought back to the many mistakes she’d made throughout her life. She was not perfect, by any means, and would be the first to admit it. Once a mistake had been made, however, she would do her best to avoid repeating it. Make a mistake, gain a valuable lesson from it, and move on. In the years it would take for the memory to fail, hopefully the lesson would be committed to character. This lesson, however, she was beginning to realize she would never forget.

“It’s time to take… your… MEASUREMENTS!” Utterly terrifying, a nearly unrecognizable alabaster mare stalked her halls, long measuring tape trailing behind her, striking cold shivers into every guard she passed.

Dear Princess Celestia,
Never ever tease your stylist in the middle of a time-pinch.

“Right here Rarity!” A voice called out from beside her; the cold voice of betrayal. Luna stepped out from the shadows; her judgmental face lacked even the slightest notion of pity. She was nightmare moon in spirit, merciless, and unyielding.

Dear Princess Celestia
Never tease your overworked sister, and time pinched stylist at the same time.

***

The fiasco had started innocently enough. If one was creative enough about it, it could even be said that Rarity brought it upon herself. (Of course, that would be an incredibly skewed position to take.) Celestia had become incredibly curious about the dress Rarity had in mind for the Hearts and Hooves festival. She had confidence in the pony, that wasn’t the issue; it was more the level of resolve with which Rarity had denied her desire to see the early sketches.

Her new aide and seamstress had much more of the “artist” mentality than she had originally expected. Throughout a life as long as hers, patterns of certain types of ponies became more recognizable, varied as they might be. There was an underlying tendency of most artistic ponies to get second opinions on things they lacked confidence in, while being zealously protective and secretive of projects they considered to be potential masterpieces. Knowing this only made the curiosity exponentially worse, because Rarity had vehemently refused to let her see the current progress, offering only assurances that it would be completed in time.

Celestia would never be so petty as to order Rarity to show her what she had so far, but she certainly wasn’t above teasing. The poor mare seemed to be especially susceptible to anything that involved flirting; for a few days, Celestia had been almost subservient to her, during meals she insisted on serving her portions and refilling her wine, the impropriety of this embarrassing Rarity greatly, leaning to close to her all the while. She even went so far as to accidently spill her drink, ‘accidently’ touching horns when she cleaned it off of the other mare, transmitting a particularly raunchy image into Rarity’s head. The poor seamstress had suffered it without response, resolute not to be shaken by such silliness. Thus, things naturally escalated

In hindsight, involving Luna was an extremely bad call. She was a notoriously grumpy morning pony, and disliked being pranked nearly as much as she did being prematurely awakened. Her loyal sister had been running herself ragged covering the duty of both the sun and the stars, yet still insisted on escorting and aiding Rarity around the Castle throughout the day. Then again, cunning as she was, Celestia was in no way calculating enough to predict the fallout of that unfortunate decision.

***

Rarity was borderline delirious when she collapsed into bed, barely making it to her room. Emotionally she felt like someone had locked her in a pony-sized clothes dryer, turned it to high. Aria was like a harbinger in her head, the perfect mentor she had never met, so much to teach her at every turn. Concepts she had thought were brilliant turned out to be short-lived and shallow; things she had disregarded became more deep and meaningful. Her entire world was shifting, altering, becoming infinitely more complex with each new insight she gained. The difficulty became retaining her own originality and style, while learning as much as she could from the works of the last royal seamstress.

And that was only her internal struggles. As if the self-garnered emotionally instability wasn’t enough, Celestia continued to be an enigma. Perhaps it was because she had denied the Princess’ request to see her progress, or maybe the princess was truly after her, it was impossible to say for sure. But Rarity knew flirting when she saw it, and for whatever reason Celestia had been completely insatiable for the last few days. Insatiable: just thinking the word brought a mental image that the unicorn had been trying to repress to the forefront of her mind, and she put her hooves over her head, trying to block it out. Where had that idea even come from, anyway? Alright, maybe there was mutual attraction as well, but this was hardly the time to address that kind of problem, was it? She had work to do, and-

As she hovered somewhere between consciousness and oblivion, she felt somepony silently slip under the covers behind her. After a few moments, forelegs and hooves pulled her close. Professionalism be damned, there was only so much lust a pony could take. Celestia could have her. It wasn’t the first time the thought had struck Rarity, to simply give in to the alicorn, but the proposition was far more tempting now combined with proximity and location. Still half asleep, she waited for Celestia to make the next move

***

Luna was happy. It felt like it was the first time in ages she had gotten a break, and she could not have asked for better company. The lavender object of her affection gazed through a telescope, enraptured. Curious just how attentive and studious the unicorn was, Luna changed a single star, and waited patiently. After a few minutes, the unicorn frowned, pushing dark hair with a streak of pink out of her eyes, and looked again.

“Strange.” Levitating a notebook and pen over, she began to mutter to herself. “Big Dipper’s formation seems different tonight; the right triangle formed by Pheceda, Merak, and Dubhe seems to be off somehow…”

“…I love it when you correct my geometry.”

Twilight started, turning quickly to identify the intruder on her bed “Whose- Oh. Oh!” The surprise on her face was quickly replaced with another emotion: Need.

Practically tackled by the smaller mare, Luna fell back onto the bed, but didn’t let the surprise keep her from quickly wrestling her way on top of her aggressor, mouths locked in a heated kiss. Twilight was hesitant at first, but then sprung like a loaded trap, forearm looping around Luna’s neck, returning every push and gesture she was given; leaving Luna gasping for breath.

So Twilight felt the same way about her? Nothing could have made Luna happier than that single, wondrous, realization. She felt no need to hold back, to pace herself. Her feelings for Twilight had existed since that first Nightmare Night, when the mare was the only one who had seen beyond the angry bluster, seen her for who she truly was, and taken care of her. Luna had never managed to get up the courage to approach her until now, but she was glad she finally had. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she continued, the heat became almost unbearable as her hoof traced its way down and she followed it, kissing each individual diamond of the cutie mark-
Wait.
This couldn’t be right. Why was it the wrong-

Raising her head slowly, Luna saw an alabaster mare beneath her; the Unicorn’s white face tinted a dark, deep, red, twisted into a combination of embarrassment and shock. Not Twilight. And she certainly wasn’t in Twilight’s treehouse. Luna practically ejected herself from the bed, nearly bumping the wall.

Stumbling over her own words, she was almost unable to finish an entire thought, slipping back into the Royal Equestrian voice “We did not intend-! Rather, we were dreaming that it was- …What was thou doing in our bed?!“

Rarity looked around confused, face not showing any sign of returning from the abnormal color. Luna raised a hoof to her forehead, realizing that this was, in fact, not her bed chamber.

She went through a mental checklist of what had happened, trying to narrow down exactly how she’d gotten back in Rarity’s bed. “We walked you to your room, you closed the door, we walked back towards our quarters, and then-“
Well, ‘and then’ she had passed out in the hallway, but Luna had no intention of retelling that part. Suddenly she figured it out. All the pranking, and the teasing, there was only one pony undoubtedly to blame here. She made eye contact with Rarity, and could tell they were thinking along the same lines.
“CELESTIA!”

***

“And you swear you didn’t give me that dream sister. Swear it!”
A very miserable white alicorn nodded in affirmation, denying that particular part of the shenanigans. Apparently her plans had only gone so far as to arrange them in a bizarre and compromising position. They both refused to answer when Celestia asked them what exactly happened. Luna stomped out in irritation, rattling the three-way mirror.

Rarity slowly and methodically measured her client, making sure that her magic made as much awkward and undignified contact as possible. It was against her nature, but remembering the constant toying at the whims of the alicorn now at her mercy made it almost innate.

“Tail up.” Celestia glowered at the request, but complied. Rarity took a measure of her rump, an exaggerated sigh of disapproval escaping her lips. “tsk tsk. Looks like I will have to make some rather large expansions.” The lie earned her another glare.

“How crude.”

“That coming from the ‘princess’ who thought it’d be funny to levitate her sister into my bed”

“I would never have done such a thing had I known you were harboring such feelings for each other. It’s your own fault for being so stubborn.”

Rarity accidently bumped the princess’ cutie mark with the edge of her measuring tape, eliciting an involuntary shudder. “That’s absolutely preposterous! Anything that happened because I thought she was y-“ the alabaster mare cut herself off, though too late, judging by Celestia’s knowing smile, but the alicorn (wisely) said nothing.

Her hooves held the tape flat. Alicorns were so big! It was hard to believe anyone could get used to designing for them, just so much taller than everything else. Unlike with standard design, extra detail and thought had to be put into the stomach of the dress, because they towered so high over everyone else. Especially in Celestia’s case, because of her condition. Irritated as Rarity might have been, she couldn’t help but be saddened by the observation that the ribs seemed to be jutting against her skin more so than the last time, and the coat seemed to have lost some of its luster. Subconsciously her touch became softer, gentler even. They had gotten in the habit of eating dinner together, but Rarity had no idea what the Princess’ other eating habits were like.

“Again, it’s Celestia in private, Rarity”

“Celly,” Rarity used the nickname rebelliously, not quite ready to go back to taking orders so soon after the mischief. “What do you do for breakfast and lunch?”

Rolling her eyes, the Alabaster mare pushed the issue. “A serious answer would suffice”

“I’m eating plenty, Rarity, that’s not the issue at hand.”

“Take a seat”

Celestia obediently sat down. Taking a measure along the length of her back, the unicorn couldn’t help but notice how tense the larger mare was, not merely due to context, but large kinks and knots, the kind that could only be built up from long periods of neglect.

Before she knew it the tape was suddenly discarded to the floor, and Rarity was working on the biggest of the knots. “When was the last time you went you the spa? There’s so much tension here.”

Celestia grunted. “I had hoped my punishment was nearly complete.”

Rarity’s eyes widened, “Punishment?” She couldn’t think of any reason why a pony would want to avoid the spa, or massages. Her mind turned to Fluttershy, and suddenly the reason was clear. “OH… I see…”

The Alicorn tilted her head towards the white mare suspiciously, trying to ascertain what exactly had been discovered. Rarity leaned forward whilst kneading the long neglected muscles, and whispered in her ear, huskily, “Does it have something to do with… wingspan?” Celestia’s eyebrows shot up, as the alabaster mare suddenly tweaked the spot she had found on Fluttershy long ago.

PHWOOMP

Wings fully extended, the alicorn was now laying flat on the floor; Celestia’s hooves were covering her eyes,. She looked positively miserable and dreadfully embarrassed. Rarity would have felt terrible, but the image was too funny; an immortal, embarrassed by something like that? She continued to work on the larger mare’s back, unfazed by the reaction. If anything, it was nice to see that Celestia was not without shame, and still subject to some of the less pleasant pony emotions.

The Alicorn nickered softly, no longer hiding her face. “I stopped going around five hundred years ago, when I found out the servants had a running lottery…”

Rarity, to Celestia’s surprise, didn’t laugh. “On who could-“

“Yes. I believe they referred to it as… ‘raising the Equestrian flag’”

“…You poor dear” There was a long silence, which eventually gave way into a simultaneous guffaw

“Well, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Why Fluttershy’s wings pop sometimes when she’s just thinking about going to the spa. And almost every time Dash hits a rainboom.” She paused, realizing revealing her friend’s secret might have been a bit of a misstep. “It’d probably be best not to mention that to anyone.”

Celestia made the ‘sealed lips’ motion with her hoof, a smile playing across her face. She sighed, pleasantly. The unicorn’s skilled hooves felt amazing.

***

AN: Well, there it is. Lots of news actually, I edited the first chapter, now complete with a better hook and a delightfully ambiguous little prologue. Second chapter doesn’t suck as much now, although I’m still not happy with it. Chapter five won’t take nearly as long to write as this one, as I actually edited some of this chapter out to put in it: The new dress, and Celestia’s reaction, combined with a disturbing revelation… muhahaha-cough. Also, I finally figured out how I want to do the ending. It’s now 100% less confusing than it was, and about 50% less bittersweet. I’m really doing my best to write Celestia as both a character who has seen almost everything having been around for thousands of years, but still has some innocence and funny quirks. Difficult combination, but it’s not been a disaster so far. I hope.

Void

Chapter 5: Void

Nearly stabbing herself with the final stitch, Rarity realized how excited she was; it was good. really really good. She was probably the happiest she’d been with her work in years.

The dress was everything she’d imagined it to be. Her inspiration for this particular design had been the lightly frothing river that ran along the edge of the castle, white overall, with turqoise underlying layer and diagonal turquoise and white stripes below the waist. She had wanted to make the primary color turquoise, but had settled for white, knowing that a more colorful dress would draw extra attention to Celestia, whose garb had been fairly conservative up to that point.

Aria’s ‘lessons’ had been hard, and her oversight punishing, but this was possibly the most beautiful dress she had ever created, thanks in no small part to the self-imposed mentor. All that was left was to show it to Celestia. Celestia’s approval was everything. This was all for her, after all.

It would have been an incredibly exciting moment if it was just her first dress for royalty, but now, her first dress for royalty in an incredibly daring, striking new style? It gave her chills. Rarity did a giddy circle around the display, making sure everything was in its proper place. She had taken a more minimalist approach with the gems of the piece; using a single rounded, well cut sapphire as a broach. The fabric that acted as its holder was white, reflecting the intended cloudiness of the moving river into the gem itself. She placed the display behind a curtain, readying it for a dramatic reveal, and went about the workroom, cleaning. All previous thoughts of cleanliness had fallen by the wayside before the dress was complete; Now that it was, she was rather ashamed of herself, it looked like a bomb had gone off, much to the collateral damage of various fabrics, papers, and inks, scattered about. It was difficult not to be overly reflective as she worked, realizing that it wasn’t simply the discovery of new potential that had driven her into this mania. It was the princess herself. The immediacy of the situation had created a new purpose for Rarity, a sense of real need that she had never felt before. Something about how the Princess valued the way image was projected to the kingdom resonated with her, made her feel like she was suddenly operating at the highest levels of a craft she had only seen echoes of before. She was needed here. And better yet, she was good at it.

There was a knock at the door. It was all she could do to suppress a squeal.
“One moment,” she did a once around the room, making sure everything was in its proper place, stacking a few rolls of fabric with her magic as she trotted to the door

***

Celestia was absorbed in thought. deja vu was fairly common for her, unsurprisingly she was likely to encounter it practically anywhere she went, but this feeling in particular was different. Coming down to the workroom to view the work of a pony who wanted nothing more than to see a smile on her face was almost crushingly reminiscent, a feeling she tried to squash the moment it arose.

It still felt like it was only yesterday, even though in reality it had been centuries past. She had already resigned herself to being happy with whatever the designer mare had prepared for her; Rarity was nothing if not competent, well versed with the current trends of fashion. Celestia disliked the modern look; it was one reason, of several, that she had not bothered with ornate garb in quite some time. One of the innate blessings of being a semi-deity, she mused mirthlessly, was that no one ever dared to ponder whether or not a goddess was under-dressed. There had never been a doubt whether or not the designer mare would have been able to create something that covered her current state of weakness adequately, but the level of secrecy that had been adhered to was unprecedented, a rather maddening development for Celestia. It had been a long time since anypony had tried, and succeeded in keeping secret from her.

Even Luna had been tight-lipped, though she suspected that was more due to the recent debacle. Since that rather embarrassing series of events, she resolved herself to be patient, spending more time with the unicorn, rather than pushing her directly. As mixed as her motives may have been, the result was surprisingly pleasant: Rarity was far wiser than she initially appeared, and shared a surprising number of similarities to herself. Unlike the upper echelon of society, whose masks became so second nature they overshadowed the typically small and petty pony beneath them; Rarity’s mask was simply a caricature of herself, a manipulative tool, completely separated from her personal identity. When she had seen Celestia’s faults, she had not recoiled… rather drawn closer, recognizing that there was no need for masks when she herself had, in many ways, become the architect of Celestia’s image.

The new level of closeness had made things difficult. Celestia was troubled every time she thought about it: It was one thing to deceive an associate of inferior rank; but habitually lying to a friend was an entirely other issue. It was more of a question of whether the alabaster mare would operate better in ignorance, as opposed under the full weight of responsibility that full-disclosure would entail.

Voicing this concern to Luna the previous night had not helped with her indecision in the slightest. Her sister’s half-awake advice had been equally murky. “She is far more observant that you give her credit for. She may not know specifics if you choose to withhold them, of course, but one would be a fool to call her ignorant.”

There was no missing the underlined jab. Celestia bit back a retort. Her sister’s advice rang true, Rarity had become so much more crucial than before, as well as precious to her personally, and leaving someone so involved in the dark would just be cruel, would it not?

Lost in thought, Celestia arrived at the workshop door, her inner distractions leaving her dangerously unaware of the impending storm.

***

“Celly! Thank you so much for coming,” She nuzzled the alicorn in friendly greeting, heart racing a mile a minute. There was only so much one could prepare for, but to her irritation, the sound of rain triggered a series of lightning fast realizations: ‘What? That’s going to ruin the lighting! Oh well it can’t be that big of a storm can it? It was so bright only moments ago. No matter, this is it. The dress can stand for itself.

Celestia smiled at her playfully, “You’ve certainly managed to hold my interest. I’m sure with the level of confidence you’ve displayed you’ll meet my typical highexpectations.” the Unicorn’s face suddenly fell, and Celestia tried to reassure her, “I’m joking my dear, I’m sure I’ll be happy with whatever you’ve prepared.”

Rarity shook her head vigorously, “No! I want you to give me your complete, unfiltered, honest opinion. I took a lot of risks with this design.” She indicated a place for the Alicorn to sit and took her place beside the curtain, unable to resist the goofy grin that always formed during a big reveal.

She threw the curtain back like a show-pony magician, complete with twirling flourish, and a cheesy “viola!”

A flash of lightening illuminated the dress, temporarily obscuring the unicorn’s vision. Rarity thought she had prepared for every possible reaction. She knew that there was a possibility Celestia would dislike the certain borrowed elements from the old style, or that Celestia might just dislike it in general

As her vision cleared from the flash, for a moment her heart stopped entirely. There was no preparation for this.

The Princess of Equestria

Divine and unflappable

Her dear friend

Gazed upon her work

And wept.

***

“Please say something…”

There were no words. There was no response. Not so much as a sob. Celestia could have been a statue, save the tears streaming down her face. Rarity wanted to run away, put as much distance between her and this mistake she had made as possible. These were not tears of joy, she could tell the difference, these were tears of grief. Of Pain: Pain that she had caused, inflicted, because she’d been too stupid and prideful to get a second opinion. ‘You never thought it through, Rarity, you never even considered the possibility...’ she silently lambasted herself, the epitome of self-loathing.

Celestia’s lips formed a word, one that was not spoken so much as whispered, her voice was almost completely unrecognizable, labored with sorrow and regret:
“Aria..”

***

Rarity was running, gasping for breath, mane askew. It wasn’t until rain splashed across her face that she realized she was outside, but her pace only quickened despite the rain pelting her body, soaking into her coat. She didn’t care, surprisingly apathetic to the long term phobia. Guilt drowned out her usual pet peeves, leaving her surprisingly numb.

The Princess was in so much pain already; she had seen it every day for weeks. Celestia did her best to hide the discomfort but Rarity had seen it, day in, and day out. Yet she never cried. Even legends stated ‘the sun never cried’, which surely was an exaggeration, yet legends always stem from a bit of truth.

Rarity had inadvertently broken the resolve of a Goddess. She had lashed out blindly, irresponsibly grasping at new heights, and her short-sightedness had torn open an old wound of a Princess. No, not just a princess. A loved one.

‘Aria, what did you make me do!?’

‘Rarity... You did this to yourself.”

The imagined answer only propelled her to a full gallop into the yawning darkness, eyes stinging from far more than rain. She knew the voice was right, but trying to outrun it was significantly easier than accepting it. She slipped, her glasses flying into the undergrowth. For a few moments she searched in vain, her eyes still adjusting to the lack of glasses and lighting. Slowly, she stood, realizing in the process she had possibly sprained her foreleg. The surrounding area was disorienting: dark, claustrophobic, and overgrown. It was familiar, however, and realization of her location triggered an involuntary groan: ‘The hedge-maze...’ immediately she thought of Discord, bickering amongst friends, and Tom: the biggest diamond she had ever seen, (which tragically, did not turn out to be a diamond,) it was a completely miserable series of events. It went without saying that all previous memories of this place were not pleasant ones.

Everything froze for a moment, as a familiar, slithery voice interjected, cutting her off in mid-thought:

“It’s not so bad after a couple of decades, you know...” The voice was ethereal, and definitely familiar. She spun in multiple circles, trying to identify location of the voice.
“...Discord” she hissed, searching the dark corners of the labyrinth, adrenaline kicking in. Ironically, she was far more angry than scared.

“Well, what do you want? Manage to free yourself from your little statue again?” It was probably unwise to mock the formless demon, but she was far past the point of wisdom. Soaking wet, in the middle of a hedge-maze, Rarity was not in the mood to buck around.

It took him a few moments to respond, playfulness replaced by an irritated hiss, “If you actually shut your mouth, you might learn something, little unicorn”

She snorted audibly, almost prancing through the maze; Dealing with an impotent demon seemed like a cake-walk, as opposed to dealing with the fact that she had wounded Celestia. She almost welcomed the opportunity. Bravado came easily when she her blood ran hot. “Learn something? from you? I mean really, despite goddess knows how many years to plan your revenge, you opened up with chocolate rain clouds and managed to make me carry a big rock-” a small shudder at the memory of tom might have betrayed her uneasiness, but she pressed on, letting her anger carry the bluster. “-and you even managed to fail at that. A truly terrifying plan indeed.” She enjoyed the long silence that followed, continuing to idly follow the hedge maze, dark green corridors stretching out for miles in front of her.

A single question squelched her elation, sending a chill up her spine.
“So tell me, Rarity, since you seem to know me oh so well. Why would I even bother making an effort to destroy what is doomed to collapse on itself?

Righteous anger she had felt so purely earlier was suddenly mingled with fear. If Celestia hadn’t told her she didn’t need to know... and yet...

“No smart remark? Now, since you’ve decided to hold your tongue, let me ask you a question more to your liking: What happens to a dress, if it ‘misplaces’ it’s stitching?

The underlying meaning of the oblique metaphor was lost on her, though the simple answer was clear. She kept a steady pace, stopping every once and a while to get her bearings, trying to pay as little attention to the eerie conversation as possible

“It’s no longer a dress,” she murmured, “It all falls apart. But stitching doesn’t just disappear all at once-”

“Exactly. It takes years. It’s a very long drawn out process... isn’t it? but eventually the stitching begins to tear, fray, wear down. If you repair it, you have a new problem: the cloth itself eventually needs to be patched, entire sections replaced if you’re really dedicated; Inevitably, though, all you’ll be left with is a tattered rag! a shadow, a mere fraction of what it once was.”

The metaphor was taking a turn for the disturbing, aggravating a nagging doubt that had laid dormant in the back of her head since the first argument. Celestia had “explained” everything: but her reason for excluding Twilight defied logic. Twilight was intelligent, rational, completely capable of taking things in stride... in fact the only thing Rarity could imagine truly sending Twilight it to such the potentially dangerous frenzy Celestia described was...
If there was some other source of her ailment; If it was serious, fatal even, but something so powerful that even Twilight couldn’t face it.

Too powerful for Twilight...
The reality of the situation hit Rarity like a ton of bricks. Frustration she had pushed aside and fears she had tried to ignore all converged on her simultaneously. She was in over her head. Rarity collapsed onto her rump without a thought to the dignity of it, all intention of finding her way out of the maze temporarily crippled in worry. The ground was soggy, and she was all too aware of the mud now caking on her legs. Her tears began to flow again, lost in the downpour.

There was nothing special about her, nothing fair in this. Making ponies look pretty was her life’s work, not this: Discord, Alicorn secrets, the fate of Equestria; She just wasn’t equipped to deal with it. She wasn’t good enough. Rarity rolled up in a ball, willing the rain to flood the hedge maze, taking her somewhere far, far away in the process. Discord’s final words imparted little comfort; “Ask her about the Sepulcher, little mare. Ask her why she refuses to face it.”

The unicorn finally lost consciousness, darkness taking her in it’s merciful embrace, and Rarity knew no more.

***

She was floating, somewhere, disconnected in space. There was a feeling of being cradled by something much bigger than herself, something warm. It sang gently, with the most beautiful voice she had ever heard.

Slowly, it lowered her into warm water, careful to hold her head above the surface, a soothing sensation running through her mane, her coat, each of her hooves, meticulous as it was thorough. Kindness emanated through it’s every motion, gentleness in it’s touch. The warm light lifted her again, drying her gently, placing her on something soft, holding her close. Even teetering on the edge of consciousness, the feeling was unmistakable.

It felt like home.

The formless voice began to tell a story, its playful rythm both bard-like and exquisite: The ballad was about an earth pony, with a coat as white as snow, and a mane the color of the morning sky. ‘Her name was Aria. A foal left on the castle steps, the kind mistress had taken her in, and cared for her as her own. When the mistress inquired, the foal was embarrassed to confess that she didn’t know the date of her own birthday, a revelation that, to her surprise, delighted the mistress to no end: ‘See, we have so much in common!’ the mistress exclaimed, forever marking that very day as the day they would celebrate together, a birthday for those who had none.

The filly taught herself to patch her doll’s clothing, determined to be self-sufficient, and as such developed a surprising dexterity with a needle. This did not escape the Mistress’ eye, and for her next birthday, the filly was given every tool a seamstress could desire.

You see, the mistress had never had a daughter, a foal to call her own. Throughout thousands of years children had been an enigma to her, duty had never allowed for such pleasures. Aria was a gift, a daughter she had never had, cutting through the calculated distance the mistress had kept between herself and everyone else for so long. A lesser filly would have been spoiled by the gift, but not Aria. It gave her purpose: She would become the Royal Seamstress, and serve beside the mistress for the rest of her life, being near her a happiness of it’s own. But as with all things mortal, this feeling did not last. As she reached her marehood, she became even more beautiful: her suitors were many, but none of them were ever satisfactory. It took time, but soon she realized she desired the mistress as a lover; she did not feel worthy, however: as the mistress had given her everything she knew, to even say such a thing aloud would have been the height of selfishness. But perhaps, she could show her love another way. Aria poured her heart into her designs, her work almost above reproach:

But the Mistress, eyes dimmed by time, did not notice.

‘What a beautiful dress,’ she would say, completely unaware of the message behind it.

Aria worked even harder, traveling in secret by chariot to the seven wonders of Equestria, observing other famous places of beauty, looking to find the secret that would best show her love. Inspiration took her over, and, like a mare possessed, she worked. ‘This one is the one’, she would write in her diary, ‘today is the day!’

But the Mistress did not notice.

‘What a beautiful dress,’ she would say, unaware of the travels and the toils her ‘daughter’ had taken. Blissfully ignorant of the wounds her careless words inflicted.

But Aria did not hate her for it, never for a moment. Her diary was free of malice, though it weighed heavy of hopelessness. But she could not burden the mistress with her longing. The careless words became a mantra of love-unrequited;
‘What a beautiful dress,’ she would say, forever oblivious to the heart broken Aria

After years of watching this routine with cruel glee, a trickster bound in the garden statue offered her the guidance she sought, a promise, which was likely too good to be true. ‘She created the beauty of Equestria,’ the trickster said, ‘things you make petty mockeries of, and you expect her to see your love through them? No, that is a fools errand. Instead, seek out the darkest cave, in the deepest part of the Everfree. There you will find something hidden, something she would never trust any mortal to see. Show her you can look upon the most horrid, wretched part of her, and love her just the same.

***

“So she left a note, as well as all her diaries that had accumulated over the years... and the mistress never saw her again.”
Celestia’s voice was shaking by the time she had finished the story.

Rarity opened her eyes, realizing at once she was in the Princess’ personal quarters. She turned over, and gazed into the grieving Alicorn’s haunted magenta eyes, their faces inches apart. She wasn’t sure what to say, instead she opted to gently kiss the imminent tears away before they fell. “She was really your first foal?”

Celestia stared at the ceiling, focusing on it so intensely it almost looked like she was trying to burn a hole through it. Her mouth opened, closed along with her eyes, and opened again.

“In a way, yes. In the beginning, though I cannot remember the details, Luna and I were far more involved with our creations. Eventually this became counter-productive: we were doing more harm than good, coddling, favoritism, and constant interference became very damaging to the autonomy of all ponies. So we became more deistic, aloof, letting centuries flit by as we watched the results of our actions. That did not end particularly well either; thus, we decided to take a more active role in the world again. There were still occasional problems, but significantly less than the other two approaches. After Nightmare Moon was banished, I tried to maintain the same distance; but in my loneliness I became weak. Aria was my breaking point, part of what made me a Pony again. Suddenly I was no longer living from year to year, but rather from day to day. Every moment was suddenly precious. Ponies had always said having foals changed your perspective, but I never really understood it until I met Aria. She was...”

“... Really special.” Rarity finished. Noticing Celestia looking at her with a inquiring eyebrow, she quickly explained what she’d learned and observed from Aria in the last few weeks: How the Royal Seamstress was completely ahead of her time, the similar styles they shared, the brilliance that emanated in Aria’s final designs, and how every outfit was custom built to compliment a lightly colored Alicorn.

When she had finished recanting, Celestia had the misty eyes of a proud parent, utterly appreciative of the Unicorn’s perceptiveness. “You know, I was actually thinking that it was the most beautiful dress I had ever seen. It just reminded me of her so much the feeling was overwhelming.”

Rarity understood, offering quietly, “I can always make you another dress dear, if-”

Celestia put a hoof to her lips, nuzzling her gently. “Not in this lifetime.” The Alicorn pecked her on the cheek and pulled back quickly with a smile, leaving Rarity sputtering and blushing in response.

“I think I should try it on right now. She dismounted the bed gracefully, and Rarity’s heart swelled when she saw the princess had taken the time to move the dress and manikin up from the workroom. Deftly removing it with magic, Celestia put her forelegs through, then looked at Rarity with a mock helpless look, “I seem to be stuck, my dear Rarity, whatever shall I do?”

The unicorn walked over, glaring at her playfully. “How very uncouth, princess.” A strange tingling hit her, there was always something erotic to the act of putting on another pony’s clothes, despite the irony that they spent most of their time naked regardless. The mood was borderline smoldering: Celestia said nothing more as Rarity gently manipulated her body to fit properly. She tugged the left wing gently through the proper slot, doing the same with the right wing, then zipping the back gently so as not to accidentally pinch the alicorn’s coat

The princess stepped away, both of them observing her new look in the hanging mirror. Rarity was barely able to suppress an inner victory dance; her main concern, matching the turquoise in the princess’ mane had been completely unwarranted. It was the exact shade. But looking at it overall... she nearly swooned where she stood, knees suddenly wobbly. Yes the dress was great, but Celestia looked absolutely gorgeous. Gone was the friendly, under the weather pony. The alicorn before her wore the dress like a queen: Regal in both air and figure. “... It’s... you’re...” Rarity’s breath was almost literally taken away.

Celestia did a spin, turning to face her “Viola!”

Realizing that her little showmanship earlier was being mocked, Rarity managed a wry smile, still trying to catch her breath. “I would say... in that dress... your flourish was far more impressive than mine...”

In an abrupt change of moods, the alicorn suddenly turned back to the mirror, her face becoming serious again. She fiddled with the dress, lost in thought. For a moment, Rarity felt guilty, wondering if she was thinking of Aria.

“Two hundred years is a long time to mull over something. You tend to cut through the moping fairly quickly, and get right to the lesson.”

Rarity nodded, still a bit unsure where the other mare was going.

Putting a hoof to the sapphire brooch, Celestia smiled, appreciating its careful placement. “My time with Aria taught me a single, invaluable lesson. I promised myself that I would never take another moment for granted again.” Her tone began to pick up a hypnotic quality, “When I was looking for you in the gardens, I felt a panic in my chest: a tight squeezing, an unrelenting force pushing me forwards. Living day by day is one thing, but the moment I thought I might lose you, time stopped entirely. Seconds became minutes, minutes became hours, and hours became utterly excruciating. If I hadn’t found you, I have no doubt I could have lived several lifetimes lost in that night, wasting away in agony”

Rarity could scarcely believe her ears, there were more butterflies in her stomach now than when she was a filly. Her body was responding similarly to the other night, but more intensely: a pure heat, radiating over her, pushing her forwards, driving her mad.

Celestia turned to her, conviction in her eyes “I honestly don’t know how much time we have. In a lot of ways it’s impossible to now that, especially now. but I don’t want to waste a moment... I need to know-” but she suddenly faltered, looking down.

Rarity put a hoof under her chin, gently lifting the alicorn’s head to eye level with hers, “...need to know what, Celly?” she prompted gently, unable to tear her gaze away from the beautiful magenta eyes.

“Do you love me, Rarity?”

Echauffement

Chapter 6: Echauffement

First glimmers of the sun radiated opulently through the open doorway. However, this sunrise seemed different, the usual soft beams of the gently dawning morning were absent; alternatively, harsh rays, laden with an almost passive aggressive intensity were left in their stead. Neophyte Ferous couldn’t remember any mention of a forecasted heatwave. His eyes blinked open, suddenly panicked: come to think of it, he couldn’t remember much of anything. He was prone, his muzzle lying several inches away from a brick wall that smelled faintly of must. In a poorly planned out moment, he tried to spring to his feet, but barely managed to get a hoof firmly on the floor before collapsing, head throbbing like a Draconian war drum.

The life of a Royal Guard was difficult, demanding, and anonymous; thus, drinking was more of an eventuality than a choice, if one planned to cope with the vocation over a long period of time. As Ferous was fairly young, he was committed to pacing himself, opting for sarsaparilla as opposed to the harder ciders at the “mandatory” Royal Guard offtime outings. Or at least that had been his original intention. Something had obviously compromised that little personal goal, and not being able to remember what exactly that ‘something’ was had begun to drive him crazy. Momentarily opening his eyes confirmed that the ceiling was still spinning. Not a good feeling. The panic welling up in his chest was now gone, replaced with dread. Most guards had never missed a day in the span of thirty or forty years of service, and now he could have possibly missed his shift within a petty fraction of that now insurmountable norm.

‘It’s not about that though, is it?’ he thought, admonishing himself. Memory of his previous attempt to stand was still (throbbing) fresh in his mind, so he resigned himself to taking it a hoof at a time. Carefully, so as not to aggravate his condition, Ferous slowly shifted his snout to the other side, exchanging the ceiling for a more informative view of the rest of the room.

His blood ran cold. This was no bar, or bittersweet aftermath of a party gone out of control. This was a war zone, of nightmarish implications. Royal Guards of nearly every variety lay strewn about the room. He couldn’t see any visible wounds marring their previously well-groomed coats. But the dark pools beneath them painted a chilling picture.

More disquieting was the presence of several equally disabled opliptera. ‘Never call them bat-ponies:’ It was one of the first unofficial lessons he had learned on duty. There were only a couple of the dark winged Night Guard present, as opposed to the twenty something Royal Guards strewn about the room. Even a small presence of the Night Guard was significant when the opliptera’s smaller overall numbers were accounted for. Unfortunately this just made the scene look worse, as the Night and Royal Guard did not often collude: the Royal Guard typically handled the ‘heavy lifting’ oriented tasks, while the Night Guard was more suited to espionage. The workplace segregation was really more due to the timing of patrol shifts than any sort of prejudice. Infighting was unlikely, unless...

‘...unless Nightmare Moon has returned, and we are on the precipice of the next great civil war’

His pulse began to race, as the imagined scenario became more and more inflated
‘The Night Guard is more than competent. If they ambushed us, caught us by surprise, they could have pushed us back here- wait, speaking of which, where am I...?’

Disoriented, he surveyed the room for the first time, as his eyes were previously fixated on the apparent orgy of violence, and noticed the lack of windows, the only source of light coming from the open door. If there were no windows, why was there so much broken glass...?
‘Oh no...’ the realization was almost more horrifying than the possibility of civil war.This particular clusterclop had nothing to do with violence. At least, not yet. He never thought he would have preferred war as an alternative to anything, but he was now fairly certain that he and at least half of the guard would be banished before the shift was over. Ferous face-hoofed, as his now unwanted memories of the preceding night returned in an embarrassing jumble of awkward recollections.

***

‘I am invisible, understand, simply because Ponies refuse to see me.’
It was a long running joke in the guard, but one that often rang true. It was amazing what certain ponies would say within earshot of a statue-esque guard, though such indiscretions were almost exclusive to the upper class. Outside of the Royal Princesses, nobles of Canterlot did not hold much power in the modern day. In many ways, they were mere remnants of a long-antiquated system, their titles a faint reflection of standing and power that had once belonged to their ancestors. You would never know it from the way they talked, delusions of grandeur and an almost innate narcissism would make such a deduction difficult. It was this inflated personal image, however, that often led them to voice dissenting and occasionally rebellious sentiments openly at the castle’s many social gatherings. Anything borderline treasonous was extremely uncommon, but useful information was often gleaned. Celestia had made the point in every initiation speech for almost a thousand years; the Royal Guard were not simply her protectors, they were equally valuable as an extension of her eyes and ears.

The origins of ‘the network’ had simply been a game among guards to challenge each other’s observational abilities as well as pass the time. But over the long period of peace the guards began to realize the wisdom in Celestia’s words, gradually becoming invaluable intelligence assets: memorizing who was who among the nobility became the norm, along with paying extra attention to potential POI’s (Ponies of Interest.) They often talked among themselves when off duty, comparing, sharing, and correlating intelligence for accuracy’s sake (...It’s not gossip if you’re doing it out of duty.)

This efficiency was most advantageous during times of peak activity at the Castle, gathering a decent amount of intelligence on a large number of targets. During downtime, however, there was a tendency for the Royal Guard to get somewhat... fixated... on the significantly smaller number of targets. However, in the months leading up to the new Royal Seamstress’ arrival, there had been almost no visitors to the castle whatsoever. The only source of entertain- er, intelligence related activities in preceding weeks, had been the never ending games of ‘Locate Luna;’ which admittedly, was not devoid of entertainment. The Royal Guard Thinktank inadvertently killed that particular challenge the following month with an article it released in its monthly scientific journal: “Patterns in Anarchy: The Use of Statistics and Past Coordinates to Accurately Locate the Resting Place of Nocturnal Equine Deities”
In the following month, there was an unexplained decline in the journal’s popularity, directly correlated with high surge in abacus purchases (statistical study provided by RG: The Economare.)

Needless to say, the Royal Seamstress’ arrival marked the end of a very slow period within the Royal Guard, and they were rather... vigilant... in their observations. The first impression of the White Unicorn was not particularly flattering, as she bore a striking resemblance to the loose-lipped nobles the Guard found to be endlessly amusing. However, that impression was discarded the moment she passed out on a pile of dresses in the archive, the aftermath of a twenty hour research binge. There was an incident where she spent hours staring at a single dress: not touching it, or sketching, just staring. Almost an entire day had passed, and the curious white unicorn hadn’t taken a single break, not even to eat. The on-duty stallion became concerned to the point of breaking regulation to approach her, waving a hoof in front of her face; he was thoroughly startled when she lethargically waved back, her eyes glazed over, collapsing again.

The mare was obviously insane. A following encounter in the dead of night did nothing to alleviate the growing concern; instead, several guards on duty during the incident had described her as ‘terrifying’: the sing-song voice calling out for the princess, combined with glowing eyes and an ever spinning tape measure was an unsettling image, one that would haunt Nightmare Moon herself. Had Luna not been actively looking for Celestia alongside her, they probably would have arrested the crazy unicorn just to be safe... as soon as their hooves had stopped shaking.

Neophyte Ferous had come to disagree with this consensus, however. He was often assigned to the workshop during the weeks that followed the Royal Seamstress’ initial research phase. It was striking how much happier she seemed designing as opposed to researching. The research was important to her, undoubtedly, but it seemed to be too much of a draining affair to be enjoyable. She often appeared to skip around the workroom, doing a little dance when she made a ‘breakthrough,’ (or whatever the fashion ponies called it when they overcame an obstacle.) It was endearing, and completely conflicted with his previously formed image of her as a “moody genius” He wasn’t alone in this slowly changing opinion, as several other Guards on rotation had noticed the improvement of her moods.

But that was before the “wine-cellar” incident: Previously, the Royal Guard had no real operation that had gone “awry.” Part of it was the nature of their station in a time of peace, but most preferred to think of it as superior individual self-discipline. The Night Guard had the draconian “sea of swine” debacle as a black smudge on their previously perfect service record. Even mentioning it within earshot of an opliptera would earn anypony a death glare. Several years prior to her banishment, Luna had been working independently of Celestia, trying to destabilize the Draconian empire. She had ordered her Foreign Night Guards to “effectively, but indirectly” end the current Draconian regime. The focus of the operation became circulating pro-vegan propaganda among the farm life, and as they had hoped, it stimulated an uprising which aptly named itself the “vegan alliance,” a motley crew of pigs, cows, and chickens, rising up against the tyranny of the dragons. However, suffice it to say that that the rest of the operation did not go as planned, and the rest is not to be spoken of in decent company. The Royal Guard’s impending “wine-cellar” incident, however, would change that status quo entirely.

***

Apparently, the pony who coined the phrase “seeing red” was seriously simplifying the reality of the condition. Rarity wasn’t just seeing red. She was seeing carmine, amaranth, scarlet, rose, ruby, an irritating auburn, and a very pissed off looking burgundy. Admittedly, Celestia had the right to be displeased with her. It had taken five seconds of self-reflection spent in her own quarters to see that, to realize the careful words she had spoken might have sounded like a polite rejection to a pony who has, over time, become accustomed to other ponies trying to avoid causing any sort of offense.

“I... I can’t. And it’s not that I don’t, or do love you. I feel like I have a responsibility as your stylist, I have to retain objectivity. Otherwise, my bias may color my judgement, and that would compromise my entire purpose here. I just feel like I can’t answer that when everything is up in the air. “

The thin smile given in response to the platitude was one of dark amusement, an expression she had never seen from Celestia before. It was the look of somepony taking small comfort in the humor of a secret irony; one found amongst the death throes of a fading dream. The slightly vulnerable pony that had revealed herself to Rarity a moment before was now gone, replaced by the unreadable, sagely alicorn.

“I see. I believe I must concur. Forgive me for toying with your resolve.”

“Celestia-”

“Are you feeling well enough to go back to your quarters now, Lady Rarity?”

The unicorn bowed her head at the barely veiled command, excusing herself quietly

So yes, Celestia had plenty of reasons to be upset and dissatisfied with that exchange. Firstly, it was complete horseapples: Some part of her was deeply perturbed from the encounter with Discord, and her mind was still foggy. But to bring that up in response would have been even worse: ‘I’m sorry, Celestia, but the moronic amalgamation of mixed body parts frozen in the statue out back says you’re keeping secrets from me. Since he’s always been so honest and straightforward, and has no motivation to deceive me whatsoever, I’m taking his word over yours.’ Yeah. That would have gone over perfectly.

Discord wasn’t even the root of the problem, though. It was the one word that threw a kink into everything. Celestia was beautiful, intelligent, wise, and utterly enthralling. The alicorn had rescued her, cleaned her up, and taken her to bed... and goddess knew (no pun intended) that Rarity’s libido had been running around in circles for weeks without an outlet.

Anything, almost any arrangement of syllables would have rendered her powerless against Celestia, had it not involved that cursed word:

‘My appreciation of your skill is only rivaled by my desire for your body, my dearest Rarity...’
‘How could I possibly refuse?”

‘You are now my slave, and I would have you pleasure me!’
‘Yes, your grace.’

‘Rarity... pardon me for being unladylike, but I simply can't restrain myself from burying my snout in that sweet, sweet flank of yours and praying I never have to come up for air.’
‘Noblesse oblige, my princess

Rarity... do you love me?

It was impossible to give an answer, when she wasn’t sure she understood the nature of the question. Love was a longtime nemesis to Rarity, she desired it, worked for it, fantasized about it, yet it had always remained hopelessly out of reach. Now it suddenly presented itself, blatantly waving its flank in her face, before she’d truly worked out her feelings. She lusted for Celestia undoubtedly, but she had been so absorbed in her work she hadn’t had time to evaluate anything beyond the physical yearning. Behind that doubt there was a growing list of gnawing fears, each individually followed by its own chastisement

‘What if she’s dying?’
It shouldn’t matter. You’re supposed to be a romantic, not a realist.

‘What if she’s hiding something?’
Then you build a bridge and get over it.

‘That’s not the issue, aren’t successful relationships built on a foundation of trust?’
Foundations can always be reinforced

‘Isn’t this too fast?’
She’s lived for thousands of years, you think she hasn’t figured out when to wait and when to act?
‘I- Wait.. Did you just answer my question with a question?’
It was rhetorical, idiot.

Rarity shook her head. The inner monologue wasn’t helping, not to mention becoming increasingly obtuse. Even as she was lost in thought her hooves had started to take her back to Celestia’s quarters. She needed to say something, anything. Needed to apologize, make it right somehow. Despite her carefully chosen words, she deeply regretted several gaping omissions she should have thought to include in her verbal backpedal. She didn’t just respect Celestia, in many ways she had come to adore her. Love was too difficult for her to be able to define yet, that was true, and there were a lot of unanswered questions, but Rarity needed to at least let her know the depth of her-

Of course she felt it then: Heartbreak. Impossible without preexisting love, even if it’s previously undetectable. The realization was sickening. Rarity watched helplessly down the hallway, noting mirthlessly that it was remarkably similar to her first day in the castle, only the circumstances were reversed. Luna wasn’t with her, and the light pink mare wasn’t leaving Celestia’s quarters in a panicked rush. She was wrapped in an embrace with the White Alicorn, who stroked her blonde mane gently. Rarity had seen the other mare several times around the castle, but made no effort to introduce herself, perhaps she hadn’t really wanted to know. Celestia trotted into the room and out of sight. The mare turned to follow, but stopped, seeing Rarity out of the corner of her eye. Her emotions already a wreck, Rarity waited, bracing herself for the incoming look of triumph, cruel leer, or sadistic smile. Surprisingly there was none of the above. The mare hesitated, looked.... almost regretful?... and then she was gone, door shut behind her.

She looked at a nearby clock on the wall. Only a few minutes had passed since Celestia’s ‘confession.’
‘so half an hour... half an hour is all it takes to replace me?’ there was a white hot anger in her belly. Good; buck crying, she was sick of it. Time to visit an old friend

The Century old merlot had quite a kick. It wasn’t the oldest bottle of the collection, the oldest was nearly a thousand, but she wasn’t near tactless enough to drink something so valued it had its own display shelf, even if she was positively seething.
‘A lady through and through’ she thought with morose irony, downing the filled glass in one gulp. The Royal wine-cellar was certainly living up to her expectations, the taste smooth, yet potent. But truthfully she didn’t give a foal’s flank about the taste. She had lined up five bottles, with no plans of stopping until her head hit the table. It wasn’t until the Unicorn finished the fifth, and levitated five more bottles over that the several Royal Guards (who had gathered at the end of their shift, watching from the doorway) tried to intervene. She waved them off, muttering something incomprehensible. Finally, one of the guards, a unicorn stallion, tired of asking nicely. Attempting to levitate her out of the wine-cellar by force was his first mistake. Drunk Rarity had a unsettling penchant towards manipulation:

“yep, your right. heh *hic* I’ve had so much I probably can’t even lift this bottle.” The thousand year old wine left its display shelf, spinning in the air precariously. Instantly realizing he’d been caught in a trap, the guard relented, releasing her from his magic. He swallowed, unable to take his eyes off swirling wine bottle, likely imagining his future career crashing to pieces alongside the glass of the broken treasure.

“What do you want?”

She wrinkled her nose at him in defiance, her speech slurred, “Company, you silly stallion. I need a drinking buddy. In exchange, if you, and whoever takes your place when you’ve failed, matches me drink for drink, when I pass out, *hic* you can take me back to your room.”

He looked at her in disbelief. Such fighting words from such a tiny mare. She had to be close to her limit already with five bottles of wine. The Royal Guards could hold their liquor, and she hadn’t just challenged him, she’d challenged the entire guard, practically holding a priceless treasure hostage.
What was it the opliptera said? “whatever is necessary?”
With that particular misguided (and misquoted) thought, the stallion made his second mistake

“Challenge accepted. On one condition, we switch to the hard-stuff. High-proof cider, no need to waste her majesties wine. I’ll send one of my ponies to go and get it. It was an early shipment, but it was still originally for the hooves festival’s love bowl punch: so if we win, you’ll pay to replace it, and vice versa. Deal?”

The mare threw her head back and cackled, far too delighted by the turn of events for his comfort, the sound was almost wicked. When her frigid blue eyes returned to his, a shiver ran down his spine. Suddenly she was the very picture of calm and collected, the drunk mare act from just moments before completely dropped, the slur of her speech vanishing entirely
“I will abide by those conditions.”

Rarity was no stranger to unrequited love. Or alcohol.
It was a massacre.

***

AN: Hi all, a slightly extended authors note today since I didn’t bother to put one in last time. First and foremost, I wanted to thank Vargras for giving me permission to borrow a character of his, neophyte Ferous, in this chapter. The character is from his story: What Must Be Done. I wanted to do an extended segment with the Royal Guard, so his one-shot was invaluable for both research and as a point of reference. I didn’t want to incorporate some of his elements without properly crediting him, thus the guest star. “Ferous, opliptera, and the rank neophyte-(I think)” are all either coined or incorporated by his work. What Must Be Done is serious in tone, but offers a fascinating take on bat-ponies in general. Also, if you’re new to fimfiction (like me), or just living under a rock, he does the best apple-twi stuff out there, if that’s up your alley.

Anyways, I apologize for the tease/cliffhanger last chapter, but come on, we can’t resolve conflict before we get to the actual conflict right? ...right? That would just be wrong. A cookie to whoever catches the numerous (2) literary references in this chapter. Also, a thank you to PrettyMonster for the, *ahem,* flanking assistance. My finals are coming up, so it may be a while (week-ish) before I’m able to upload another chapter. As always, constructive criticism is welcome.

Oh, by the way, in the next chapter you’ll be meeting Rarity’s dance instructor.
Hint: She’s light pink

Perspective

Chapter 7: Perspective

THWACK
The bag of bits was slapped out of air with a vicious gust of magic, hitting the wall with a dull thunk, its contents spilling all over the floor.

“We don’t need your Goddess damned charity, foal!”
“Mum, please just take the money! I saw the letters from the landmare-”
THWACK
The blow glanced across the young mare’s face this time, leaving her more shocked than hurt.

Why?

There was no strings attached to the offer, she would never try to hold anything her parents heads. All she wanted was the fighting to stop, for their lives to get easier. After discovering her gem finding ability, the younger mare had thought her family’s poverty near its end. Barely more than a filly, her first massive business venture had taken up all her time throughout the summer. Creating, developing , and advertising a mail order jewelry business: Yet it had all paid off, and exponentially so. A few expensive color catalogues placed in key places throughout Canterlot, thanks to the help of a certain pegasus Pony, and the orders made had earned her more bits than she had ever thought possible, giving her more than enough to continue production of the catalogue and creation of refined looking, authentic, albeit cheap, basic jewelry. But how was she supposed to combat this reaction? There had been no way to predict this misplaced sense of pride, this emotionally idiotic line of thought. It was difficult not to hate her mother in that moment.

“... How dare you go through our mail, our private things.” The voice was quivering, though not with anger. It was the after the fact justification, a self-righteous mare trying to justify her cruel response. “Our landmare is an understanding lady, and has given us extensions in the past. Your father will find a new job before then.

‘Who do you think paidfor those extensions, you witch!’ Tempting as it was, the cutting retort died in her throat, as always. “Yes mother, you’re right, I apologize for my uninformed assertions.” Her voice was robotic, devoid of feeling, as she carefully gathered up the bits, replacing them in the bag. The stinging of her cheek was harsh, moreso than usual. Demurely, she realized that waiting for it to fade would delay her monthly visit to the landmare. It was unfortunate, but it was the landmare herself who encouraged Rarity to talk to her parents directly about their ongoing arrangement, as she felt guilty for taking the bits from a foal. Landmare didn’t know her family, not really; Rarity didn’t want her to see the fruits of her suggestion

A tentative hoof touched her shoulder, and she spun, making sure the mark on her cheek was in full view of her antagonist, who was more likely trying to comfort herself than her daughter.
“Yes, Mother?”

Her mother hissed, drawing back, likely more disturbed by the mark her magic had left on her daughters exterior than the pain behind her eyes. “... brat” she muttered under her breath, trotting away.

“Evil witch” the mare hissed quietly, low enough that her mother didn’t hear it. She loved her father, far more than her mother, but unlike her mother she had no naive expectations. Father would continue to drink as long as he was unemployed, and he wouldn’t be employed as long as he continued to drink. It was a vicious cycle.

She glared at the bottle of cider on the table. Nasty stuff, but throwing it out all at once would get her in the biggest trouble of all. Following her custom, the tiny mare checked down the hallway to make sure her mother had closed the door, then turned, levitating the bottle of cider to the sink, dumping around half of its contents; she then took a swig for herself, shuddering. Nasty nasty nasty stuff.

The ritual had worked for the last few months. If he even noticed, her father would think her mother took it, her mother would think her father was just trying to blame the volume of his consumption on her, and they would fight. They always, inevitably fought over something anyway, so that was a moot point. If anything it meant her father would spend more time outside of the house, and hopefully more time looking for a job. Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to be gone from this place. But she could never do that, not ever, for one reason, and one reason alone.

There was a tug on her foreleg, and a tiny pair of green eyes peered up at her. Little Sweetie Belle had only just learned to walk a few weeks ago, and yet here she was, all by herself, checking up on big sis.
“...Hurt?” the small filly asked

“Of course not, your sister is a big mare” she said gently, using a bit of magic to lift her sister onto her back.

“pony-back ride!” the tiny unicorn exclaimed, overly excited.

“Only if you promise to go shopping with me tomorrow, to pick out your preschool things. Also, you need to go to sleep afterwards, it is past your bedtime Sweetie”

“I promise I promise!”

Rarity trotted around the room to the delight of her younger sister, their grim surroundings suddenly fading away into a warmer, lighter feeling of joy. It would be alright, big sister would make it so. Sweetie would never want for anything, Rarity would see to that. It would have been easy simply hate her parents without Sweetie in the picture. But with her younger sister she had a goal, a future, a reason to surpass this wretched place. With that loving, adorable face to push her forward, what was a few years of paying the rent in secret, as long as the filly in question was there to reap the benefit? The unicorn felt like she could accomplish anything, overcome anything if Sweetie truly needed her to. Perhaps she could eventually open a store with the earnings that didn’t go to the landmare, anything was possible. She could always do more. She could fix it, fix everything if given enough time.

She had to. It was in her blood.

***

Poke
Something prodded her. It was far too bright, why were her eyelids not blocking out the light properly?

Poke Poke
Okay, this just wasn’t funny, wasn’t there an old saying about letting sleeping ponies lie?

Poke Poke Poke
Rarity was about to choke a mare.

Poke Poke Poke Poke “GET UP! YOU LAZY FAT COMMONER”
Somepony was about get seriously hurt. It was on. Rarity sat up, to... no one. Nopony was there, only a wonderfully tortuous headache keeping her company. Suddenly she remembered the bet from the night before, and looked around for the guards. The aftermath was almost comical

Ah. Well I guess that means I won.

Hm, well whoever was poking her had obviously given up. The table had made an excellent alternative to a pillow thus far, and it didn’t seem like the rest of the guard would be in the position to object to her prolonged nap in the wine cellar any time soon so...

SPLASH
As the last of the bucket of water emptied over her head, Rarity calmly pondered the penalty for committing ponycide in Equestria.

Sputtering water, her head flew up.
“What in Celestia’s name do you think you’re doing?”

“Yes, you would want to know that, wouldn’t you?”
The absolute last pony she wanted to see loomed over her, light pink coat and blonde mane momentarily reminded her of an inverse of her dear friend’s colors... but unlike fluttershy, Rarity had nothing but loathing for this pony.

“And the reason the royal consort has poked me dozen times, called me a not just a commoner, but a FAT commoner, and then dumped a pail of water on me would be...?” Her voice was totally flat, other than the word consort, which she said as more of a profanity than a title.

The pink unicorn dragged a tray to the table.
“My name is Stanza, I’m not the Royal Consort, and I woke you for Tea. And I’m sorry I called you fat”

Tea. Well of course. Why else poke somepony, subject them to name calling, and dump water on them, if not for tea. Well at least she apologized... selectively. Rarity took her cup, dousing the tea with a shot of cider... or three. It irked her to no end when Stanza took her cup and dumped it, filling it back up with the undiluted tea.

Visibly, her only reaction to the Unicorn’s seething glare was an aloof, judgemental look. “You can be a drunk later. Right now it would be counter-productive.” She reviewed the list of names: Drunk, fat, and commoner. This mare was not gaining rank on Rarity’s ‘favored ponies’ list. Tragically, the ongoing pounding in her head was far too loud for her to make a decent cutting retort.

“You’re counterproductive... to my headache.”

“I may be, but the tea is not. Drink it, please.”

“... No.”

“You’ll be spending the day with me whether you like it or not. I’m to prepare you for the hearts and hooves festival, whether you like it or not. I will prepare you, regardless of whether you enjoy the process or spend most of it kicking and screaming. I rather like the thought of you squealing like a school filly, in all honesty.”

More disturbed by the last part of the sudden speech than she had any intention of letting on, Rarity slowly drank her tea, all the while avoiding the unflinching gaze of the other mare. Unlike Rainbow Dash and Applejack she found no real personal enjoyment in the process of competition, and this was probably the closest thing to a rival in romance she had ever had.

“Stanzer-”

“It’s Stanza”

“Right, of course, as I was saying Stanzer-

“Stan...ZA”

“Yes, yes I know. Now StanZA...” she exaggerated the last syllable intentionally. “what do you really want, dear? I’m rather indisposed at the moment”

“To sweep you off your feet on the dance floor, of course.”

“Er- Excuse me?”

***

Rarity had taught herself to dance when she was only a filly, and paid for classical dance lessons when her business had started turning a profit as a young mare. This, however, felt more like a duel than a dance. When the two had entered, the orchestra had originally been playing a lively tune, but quickly read the mood. As soon as the dark, clashing aura that surrounded the two of them had become apparent, they had switched to something more fitting. The two circled each other, the somber strings of Lacrimarsa echoing behind them, hoofsteps exactly on the beat. The unicorn had hoped to show up her partner in a matter of minutes, but her pink partner was holding her own, empty grey eyes never breaking contact.

“Focus on your partner is key. You and Her majesty will in front of the eyes of the nation, the tiniest bit of nervousness will be bare for all to see.

Well, no pressure there. Rarity almost tripped, realizing the implications of the advice.

“Wait, not that I’m complaining, but why must I be the one to dance with the Princess? I’m only the seamstress after all.” her words almost dripped with contempt. The pony before her could obviously dance. If Celestia preferred this mare why wasn’t Stanza chosen to be her partner? Her question was ignored as the dance continued for a few tense minutes longer, she matched the other mare flourish for flourish, neither willing to relinquish a metaphorical inch of ability to the other pony

Stopping, Stanza trotted off to grab a piece of rope, using it to tie up one of her back legs. After a few confused glances, the orchestra started playing again.

“You’re to catch me when I start to fall, with this sort of dance, and only three fully functioning legs, you’ll eventually have to. Do it with magic and do it as subtly as possible.”

Their second dance together wasn’t nearly as ‘combative’ as the first. As competent as Stanza was, there were several points where the inertia was simply too much for three legs, and the imbalance started to tip her over. Though she certainly entertained the thought of letting the mare fall, Rarity could never be so cruel, it simply wasn’t in her nature. So she caught her with a tiny puff of magic, trying to be as ‘subtle’ as possible. The other mare looked a bit surprised at the catch, as if she was expecting to be slighted. From that moment on the dance became rather beautiful as they worked in tandem, both ponies getting caught up in the music and unity of the moment. When Rarity raised her partner for a slow spin, she noticed the cutie mark: It was oddly familiar, a green heart with a silver lining. She knew she had seen a similar mark on somepony previously.

When it was over, they were both panting. Stanza handed the rope to Rarity, indicating for her to follow suit. The alabaster mare deftly tied her leg up, and the dance resumed. They didn't get very far however, as Stanza strained to support her; the problem arrived in the form of a particularly difficult turn, when Rarity fell so far off her center of gravity Stanza could only cushion the fall, rather than stop it completely. Glaring, the pink mare shot a inquisitive look at her.

“Answer your question? My marks in magic academy were practically off the charts, in every area... except telekinesis. I simply can't reliably lift anything larger than a single heavy book.”

So she knows about Celestia’s condition... interesting. But as soon as she followed the line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, she balked, eyebrows wiggling incredulously
“Because I have a high telekinetic affinity and you don't? Are you serious? That’s the only reason?”

Stanza looked like she wanted to backhoof her, settling instead for shushing her furiously, glancing over towards the orchestra with concern that the exclamation had been overheard.

“Shut up.” She drew closer, whispering in Rarity’s ear, “No you stupid foal, not just because of your 'magic affinity.’ Because you were the unicorn selected to be her majesty’s aid. Because you know about her condition and will use your magic if need be to support her. And most of all, because you're the one whose name she whispers at night, and if you have any appreciation for her, in any marginal capacity, you will take responsibility for that. So if you’re doing being a stupid, selfish foal, now would be an excellent time to grow up.”

The whirlwind of emotions was... complicated. Rarity went from feeling upset, to used, then proud, then embarassed, then extremely embarassed, then just plain awkward. Suddenly Rarity connected the dots. Her name was Stanza, she had an affinity for music, and the cutie mark...

“You’re related to Cadance, aren’t you?”

Stanza nodded, “My cousin”

“Which makes Celestia...”

“Distant cousin.”

Rarity groaned. As she highly doubted that Celestia was ‘involved’ with her own cousin, she felt a bit awkward as she had obviously managed to jump to record number of wrong conclusions in an extremely short period of time.

“...Maybe we started off on the wrong hoof.”

***

AN: Um. So yeah. remember what I said about studying? I might have procrastinated a bit. This popped out as a byproduct. Seriously going to study now. Definitely not going to procrastinate again. Since, you know, I obviously have such great impulse control. *face desk* More on Stanza later, including an explanation of exactly why Celestia’s been bunking with her cousin in the next chapter. Which I’m definitely not writing in the next few days. Definitely. Confound these ponies and their compelling back stories that make me want to write them. Please forgive a few grammar/spelling mistakes as this was literally about two hours of work, and I really need to get back to studying. Oh and by "forgive" I mean, feel free to point out.

Refraction

Chapter 8: Refraction

“Go to sleep soon, Spike!” Twilight said, her voice a bit too rushed. “Make sure you’re not up too late.” Spike muttered an affirmative, looking away to hide his bemused expression as the lavender mare practically tripped over her own hooves bolting up the stairs to her bedroom. He had actually become better at hiding it over the last few weeks; If somepony had told him a month ago that Twilight would be skimping on book organizing duty, Spike would have laughed in their face. The strange behavior had begun the night Twilight had asked him to move to the other bedroom, only offering the explanation that he was ‘getting to be that age’ where he slept on his own. The sleeping arrangements in and of themselves didn’t bother him, it was more the manner in which the typically nocturnal unicorn had been conducting herself since then. She had been going to bed... early! It was almost unthinkable for Spike, a Twilight who actually hurried to go to bed. Years had passed since the first time Twilight had gone to sleep before him, and that was after a 72 hour study binge. Now she went to sleep before him early nearly every... single... night. Naturally, he was suspicious, and investigated on the second night, worried that the mare might have been sneaking out for some reason and getting into trouble. The door was as far as he got, however, as gentle snoring echoed out from the room. It was bizarre.

What normal pony is in such a hurry to get to sleep? Spike sighed; Irritation aside, he was truly starting to worry. Maybe it’s normal for ponies of her age... or maybe she’s getting old? Now there was an idea that frightened him. Closing his eyes tightly, he reminded himself several times over that, for a pony, Twilight was barely an adult, and he was dramatizing things. It was a long harbored fear that Twilight would likely be gone well before he reached adolescence, one he would rather repress than deeply dwell on. Speaking of things that he would rather repress, he subconsciously smacked himself in the head, trying not to think on the events of that particular night. Concerned about Twilight, (okay, maybe he had gotten a little lonely) he had snuck into bed with her, after first making sure the mare was asleep. A fleeting moment of blissful peace passed, but Twilight began to make noises. Odd noises. Originally under the impression she was in pain, Spike had panicked, nearly shaking her to wake her up, but her unconscious, flushed expression had stopped him cold. That was not a look of discomfort. He silently removed himself from the room, resolving never to think of it again. This would be the perfect time to go over and talk to Rarity, nothing pertaining to whatever the heck was going on in Twilight’s little dream adventures, of course, but just to blow off some steam. Thoughts of the alabaster unicorn made the uncomfortable, tight feeling in his chest even more painful. She may have never reciprocated interest in his crush, but she had always made time for him, a small gesture that had meant the world the Spike. The extinguished lights and vacant appearance of the current Carousel Boutique always served to sour his mood, so much so that he had made a habit of not even looking at the establishment as he walked by... though somehow he always wound up taking a peek, on the off chance the object of his affections had returned unannounced.
“... Where are you, Rarity?”

***

As Canterlot mare living in ponyville, the lavender unicorn had always been stuck between two worlds, to some degree. Rarely, however, had the experience been so literal. Forcing her eyes shut, Twilight began to recite the books in the ponyville library alphabetically, trying to lull herself to sleep. Just as light began to leave her, she jolted awake, realizing she had completely forgotten to check the state of her hair. Trotting over to the mirror, she briefly pondered whether or not her physical attributes carried over to her dream state, before disregarding the notion as irrelevant, and grabbing the nearby comb. ‘Better safe than sorry.’

It had started nearly a month ago. Twilight was reaching the depths of her depression, and though she made no small effort to fight it, it was beginning to affect her productivity. She was sure Princess Celestia had a good reason, that something was going on that required her focused attention, but that particular platitude did not nothing to diminish the growing sense of abandonment Twilight felt. Her mother was renowned throughout Equestria as the ‘go-to’ archaeological expert, but the demanding nature of the work had often stole away any potential family time. Try as she might to write letters to her mother now, they often carried the feeling of two scientific experts of entirely different fields, awkwardly trying (and comically failing) to find common ground. When there was an overlap, for instance, when Twilight needed insight on the archaeological origins of a magical phenomenon, such as the asymmetrical geographic dispersal of the first magical runes, her mother was a gold mine, all too willing to write pages and pages of informative content. But any sort of qualitative subject, such as the nature of love or friendship was typically replied to in a vague paragraph, a technique Twilight easily recognized as ‘Researcher’s ‘not enough data’ horse apples’. Without Celestia to fill that void as she had in prior years, the recent absence had left Twilight feeling rather empty. In the last month, though, something had changed.

Deep sleep was something Twilight was not prone to experiencing. Semi-consciousness was her preferred state; mentally running through her checklist of the day, recapitulating research, or pondering recent articles on magical theory. It was in this semi-awake state that Twilight had first become aware of it; a dark presence watching her, immensely powerful, looming just beyond her senses. Instinctively she had recoiled from it in fear, but her analytical side had kicked in shortly after the shock. Potent as it was, there was nothing remotely... ‘offensive’ about the entity. It maintained a surprisingly comfortable distance, despite the innate invasiveness of its current location. In fact, when she discarded her mental checklist to study it in greater detail, it had shrunk back, peeking out of some unknown veil of her misty subconscious in an almost foal like manner. Seeing an entity with such large magic potential run from her and hide was more than a little comical, and Twilight couldn’t help but giggle every time the behavior was repeated.. Perhaps it was some magical aspect of her subconscious, or some sort of friendly mana sprite. She would have to monitor it carefully, of course, but there was little concern in her mind that the anomaly meant her harm.

Although friends had become incredibly important to Twilight in recent years, aside from Celestia herself (who Twilight would never dare refer to as simply a ‘friend’) none of them could really match her on an intellectual level. It wasn’t so much that she considered herself superior to them, rather, the disconnect created a personal bubble of loneliness that she could never really explain, or address. The telling way Rainbow Dash’s eyes would glaze over when she tried to discuss the physics of Pegasi flight, or even Applejack’s attempts to look interested when she brought up the importance of agriculture in the modern Equestrian economy. Contempt at their lack of interest would have been selfish and unfair, ignorant of the other important factors: Practicality and the ability to take action, were both massively important traits her friends all shared, and attributes she herself somewhat lacked. Theory was relatively useless to them, unless it was immediately relevant to their current endeavors. But regardless of the justification, this distinction created an unfortunate gap, one that often led her to loneliness.

Perhaps it was due to the aforementioned gap that over the span of the next few nights the ethereal observer slowly became dear to her. Whatever sparked the process remained unknown to Twilight, but she began to appreciate the dedication of the aura. There was never any feeling of need, or malcontent. It was satisfied to quietly hover a small distance away from her, observing as she went about her nightly decompress, meditating and committing the day’s events to memory. As time passed she began to realize that her visitor wasn’t simply a displaced magical sprite as she had originally hypothesized, rather something far more intelligent.

‘Oh horse apples... what was the author’s name? I was planning to write him a letter tomorrow letting him know how invaluable his research on astral projection across mana threads was. Was it Treisenbloom? No no, that was the first article I came across on mana lines, which didn’t properly cite the sources. I’m convinced it started with an E...’ Try as she might, the name wouldn’t come to her. Near the point of waking up for the sole purpose of soothing her irritation, a disembodied voice suddenly called out from nothingness. ‘Dr. Eisenhooves?’ Twilight’s attention focused on the entity, the relief she felt from obtaining the correct name dwarfed by a growing sense of confusion in the pit of her stomach. Though disconnected, the voice had been unmistakably feminine. Why hadn’t it spoken before?

***

Productivity was more of a secondary reason why Twilight disliked deeper sleep. Primarily, it was due to that her dreamstate had been plagued by a growing number of nightmares in the last few months; Though she had trained herself to be able to go nearly a week without entering deep-sleep, it was an unfortunate inevitability. It was always the same dream, recurring in its base form, though deviating in small details. She was held in a cube made of two way glass, able to see everything perfectly, but unable to interact with anything. In the process of watching her friends live out their lives, an unforeseeable tragedy would strike. Fluttershy would gravely injure herself in the forest, or Rainbow Dash would lose control of her flight and start plummeting towards the ground. The event itself would be different every time, but she would always be too late, unable to break out of the cube to help her fallen friend.

This time it was Pinkie Pie, staring at the burned out husk of what Twilight could barely ascertain to be the remnants of Sugarcube corner. To her horror, Twilight realized that the cakes must have been trapped inside when the fire started. Crying would be the normal reaction, for any pony. But there wasn’t a tear to be seen on Pinkie’s face: her expression was vacant, devoid of emotion... dead. Twilight needed to hold her, to comfort her friend, but as always, the transparent wall held her back. Pinkie slowly sat down on her forelegs... Twilight could almost see the life leaving the Pink earth pony’s eyes but as always, the box held strong, even as she wailed against it, horn ablaze. Slowly, Pinkie turned towards Twilight, eyes never focussing directly on her, and spoke in a half croak, half whisper
“...Where were you-”
Without warning, the dream ended.Twilight looked around, barely recognizing the misty void of her subconscious through blurred eyes that brimmed with tears. The dream had always ended with her drenched in sweat, completely awake, after torturing her well into the morning. It hadn’t lasted nearly as long, something seemed to have brought her out of it... the sensation of something holding her finally registered. Cradling the lavender mare gently, the aura held her close, emanating concern, its previous self-imposed distance completely discarded. An ethereal hoof reached out gently, stroking her mane, and she realized it was whispering to her gently.

‘There there, it’s over, let it out...’ something about the knowing, compassionate voice pushed her over the edge, and any pretense of repressing her emotions was suddenly lost. Months of culminated frustrations and fears came out in a stream of emotion; she hid her face against the aura as she sobbed, only as a filly had she ever lost it to the current extent. The aura touched her horn, a gesture that felt embarrassingly similar to a kiss, and a feeling of peace passed over her, misty surroundings fading away into a beautiful darkness cascaded with stars. It like they were flying, and in the shock and wonder, Twilight’s pain began to ebb away. So many stars... she almost wanted to ask if they could stop so she could just bask in their glory. Looking down, she gasped and grabbed on to the aura tightly; Equestria was tiny beneath them, it’s size alarming when she considered what their current height must be. Only when an ethereal foreleg linked with hers reassuringly did Twilight begin to breath again.
For whatever reason, they began to slow, and the lavender mare looked at her ethereal escort quizzically. Pointing to the left, the transparent blue hoof outlined out a sight that left her slackjawed.

Gemini had been her favorite constellation as a foal. She had always associated the twin stairs with the story of the royal sisters. now, before her, Castor and Pollux were literally larger than life. The viewing angle was perfect... It was doubtful that any pony had ever seen them both in such perfect detail. Twilight was suitably awestruck, soaking in the magnificence of the twin stars.

‘You don’t have to be alone Twilight Sparkle... do you like it?’ The more the ethereal mare spoke, the more maddeningly familiar the voice became.

‘I love it, though I’m not sure how I feel about you reading my mind to find my favorite...’ Try as she might there was no weight behind the caveat, she was too awestruck... and strangely happy.

‘Not the constellation, silly mare... look closer.’ It took her a moment to spot it, though when she did, she could have kicked herself for not seeing it sooner. Near Castor, the second brightest of the main twin stars, Twilight spotted the inconsistency: a tiny purple star, one she was more than certain had never been there before.

‘It’s beautiful, but how...’ the symbolism, realization, and accompanying epiphany hit the lavender unicorn like a ton of bricks. There was only one pony in all of Equestria who could alter the stars as she saw fit. Had Twilight not already been unconscious, there was no doubt she would have fainted. Choking on a sudden surge of emotion, Twilight’s voice was barely more than a whisper.
‘...Luna?’

AN: Well, hey there everyone. It’s been a long time, but I think I’m back. Lots of big decisions and problems popped up after finals, and instead of dealing with them, like a normal person, I decided to run as far away as humanly possible and put my entire life on hiatus... which somehow extended to my hobbies (writing) as well. Lesson learned: Running away from problems just makes them hit harder when they catch up. That combined with a move into my new apartment and I haven’t made much progress, but that’s over now, so expect updates more frequently. I tried a few times to write early on last month, but I tend to write what I’m feeling, so after writing a few unintentionally grim/dark versions of the same chapter, I took a break altogether. As you can see, after gaining some perspective (I was kind of getting tunnel vision on Rar/Cel) I’m now actually trying to develop my secondary characters *shock/awe*. Also, Twi/Luna is here, and you’re welcome :). I hadn’t planned on Luna being a semi-stalker, but hopefully she came off as more cute than creepy. More Twi/Luna and a continuation of the Rarity + Stanza interaction in the next chapter. Constructive criticism is always welcome.

Crescendo

Chapter 9: Crescendo

‘A ditzy, self-absorbed, alcoholic, diva.’ Stanza was not a skilled socialite by any measure, but she was amazed by how much she had had misjudged Rarity. The alabaster mare sat, squinting through green rimmed glasses, completely absorbed in the self-appointed work before her. If anything, it served to reinforce Stanza's faith in Celestia’s mental well being. Even while ill, exhausted, and poor health, the alicorn retained the most important quality of a leader: an innate ability to see a pony’s true worth. In many ways, the princess was a far shrewder tactician than anyone gave her credit for. It was a confidence that was fairly new to Stanza, considering that when Celestia first approached to enlist her aid, she had feared the equestrian princess had gone completely mad.

***

“What? you want me to do... what?” Her prized hardcover copy of Bunni Tzu’s ‘Art of War’ fell to the floor with a thump

“Event planning, at the castle my dear. You can decline if you like.”

“It’s not that I want to turn it down but...” Forced and disingenuous, the statement was complete fabrication. Stanza had wanted nothing more than to shoot the proposition out of the sky. She hated the niceties of nobility. Watching her cousin prance around and artfully maneuver the pitfalls of high canterlot society frequently brought her to the point of nausea. Was she being punished for some unknown transgression? “I’m not particularly good at event planning, your grace. As in, I’ve never even read a book on it. Tactics, I can do. If Equestria is ever threatened by a Draconian invasion, or a Griffon aerial attack, I’m your mare. If you need to know the best way to get a group of ponies into a castle without breaching the walls...”

“You build siege towers... or am I wrong?” Short, to the point, and entirely correct. The retort had caught Stanza completely off guard. As the pink mare attempted to pick her jaw up off the floor Celestia had laughed merrily. “Equestria was not always a place of peace my dear.” Clearing her throat, the alicorn began to recite, “war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.’” Recognizing the direct quote, Stanza grinned like a filly, glancing at her fallen book.

“So you’ve read it.”

“Well... keep it a secret, but between you and me, I always thought Bunni Tzu was a terrible pseudonym.” Completely flabbergasted by the revelation, Stanza chided herself. Caught off guard again. If this was a battle, Celestia was in the process of launching the mother of all sneak attacks. Already off-balance, she opted to say nothing, waiting for the Alicorn to continue. Celestia chose her words carefully. “I’m fond of your dancing, but I know you take no pride in it. I know exactly what kind of pony you are, dear, what your gifts are. I’ve read your papers on the old wars, tactical analysis, grand strategy, theories on espionage.” Turning away in an attempt to hide her face, Stanza felt her heart swell from the praise. It was rare that anypony appreciated her true talents. A pony well-versed on wartime tactics was about as out of place in Equestria as an ursa major in the local nursery. After 500 years of peace, it was an unfortunate misconception that those who specialized in such a jingoistic area were practically wishing it upon everyone else, a falsehood that didn’t apply to Stanza in the slightest... If anything, her knowledge led her to be more cautious of war than anypony else... ‘The purpose of war is peace.’

“That doesn’t change the fact that I’m still not sure I’m the proper pony for the job-” Celestia cut her off with a tired hoof, her loving, compassionate facade replaced by an exhaustion that the pink pony could have sworn wasn’t there a mere moment ago.

“War is not the same as it was a thousand years ago, Stanza. You know that, you must know that, as that is the entire reason why there’s not been a conventional war in over a thousand years. Wars are fought now in their prevention. It is something I pride myself on becoming rather skilled at. But the window of opportunity is closing... my influence... wanes. All good things come to an end, the larger the ending, the more monolithic the outcome. But if you control that outcome, can alter the result, potentially until the end of time. I will be completely honest with you, tell you everything at stake, and let you make your own decision. I ask for nothing more than your consideration.”

Hours passed, each stroke of the story painting a picture far more grim than Stanza could have imagined. maintaining her trademark detached analysis was only partially successful; a few times the emotion building in her chest was nearly overwhelming. Even so, the cold strategic analysis did not bode well. She was uncertain this was a winnable scenario... no matter what, even the most optimistic outcome was not really a ‘happy ending’ for anyone. The full weight of the alicorn’s trust began to dawn on her. Nopony, in good conscience, could decline with the stakes as high as they were, and she was no exception. Murphy’s law was Stanza’s everyday mental playground, there was seldom a hypothetical wartime scenario she developed that did not have a touch of dire and a smidge of hopelessness... but these odds were something else entirely. She was enveloped in the tired eyes of the Equestrian princess, the sacrifice and brutality of the tale painted the Alicorn in an entirely new light for Stanza... one that deserved the utmost devotion and respect. Long before Celestia stated her request, the mare had already made up her mind, but that did nothing to lessen the poignant power of the proposal. With it, a ruthless grin began to develop on the princess’ face

“You are to be my most trusted General, Stanza of War. Trot with me into the oncoming storm... it’s a damned battle that may only be won by losing, but one that must never lose it’s meaning, even when all else fades. Will you heed the call of this old mare, of Equestria itself? Will you accompany me into the fire?” The regal nature of the Princess’ words stirred something in her, a hidden, deep desire to make a mark on history she had almost forgotten was there. The idea of managing high society outings was no longer revolting, rather, adrenaline began to kick in as she considered the possibilities: Planned events were meant to be her battlegrounds, the royal guard her troops, and almost everpony else was an enemy. A war of espionage, subterfuge, and inevitable attrition. It was to be her own personal battle of Thermoplyony... this was the call she had been waiting for all her life, beckoning for her to come meet her fate, it’s voice fuguelike, but relentlessly invigorating. Celestia’s ruthless grin was infectious. Stanza took the princesses hoof, the pact already made in her heart long before the words left her darkly smiling lips.

“I’m your mare, Princess. To the bitter end.”

***

‘A strategy is only as strong as the weakest soldier it relies on.’ Thus, if a strategy fails, then the oversight of the commander is to blame.’

That particular quote of Tzu’s writing had always struck Stanza as somewhat paradoxical. It seemed that if the strategy failed, regardless of the General’s oversight, the fault still lay with the soldier in question. In the process of observing the Royal Seamstress, Stanza had begun to understand the wisdom of the proverb. Recounting her first encounter with Rarity, she put a hoof to her forehead in a grimace. It had been so awkward.

“You are my General, Dear Stanza. But I have a feeling she will become my right hoof. There is far more to her than meets the eye.”

Gritting her teeth and nodding was all that Stanza could do at the time. Having been one of the only compelling examples of any source of conflict in the last thousand years, she had studied the exploits of the six elements of harmony in great detail, and wasn’t particularly impressed. It wasn’t that she disapproved of the nature of their bond: truly, kinship and personal bonds were proven to be incredibly strong force throughout history... she simply found their tactics lacking... substantially. Slipping into her dress from the previous day, she thought back on the events of the night, lost in thought. Frequency of the parasitic shadow’s attacks on Celestia had increased at an alarming rate, almost two or three times a night. Stanza’s nightly protection ward still held off the shadows easily, but the innate power of the onslaught was increasing exponentially. The fact that a single attack had diminished the Alicorn’s considerable power to its current state was incredibly worrisome to Stanza. All it would take was one night of a unexpected surge in power, or a moment she was off guard, and Celestia’s condition would be exponentially worsened, at best. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to force the doubt from her mind.

“You’re curious, right?” The alicorn’s voice pulled her from her thoughts.

“Hmm?”

“If you want to see her in the flesh, I think she’s on her way to visit, right at this moment. You may want to hurry though, we wouldn’t want her to get the wrong idea.” The voice was almost playful

“What idea could she possibly...” Voice trailing off, Stanza became aware of her current state. dress half off, sleep in her eyes, lazily rousing from the royal bedchamber...

Oh, by Luna’s sweet pockmarked moon... this could be a somewhat compromising position. Considering her responsibilities required her to work closely with the princess on an almost nightly basis, she did not need implications like that flying around. In a matter of moments, her dress was thrown on, sleep telekinetically brushed out of her eyes, and she was near galloping out the door like a bat out of tartarus.

“Stanza, dear. Check thine dress.” Stanza looked down, immediately swearing under her breath. The slip was inside out. Otherwise prone to hating her foalish pink coat color, it admittedly came in handy at moments like this, when her cheeks would have otherwise burned brightly. Fixing the misstep took far too long, and as she rushed out, she was mildly disappointed in the personal failure; the alabaster mare in question had clearly seen her leave Celestia’s chambers. Avoiding eye contact was plan B, but even that was botched as she passed Rarity; a quick glance revealed knowing eyes, completely locked onto hers. Awkward as the moment was, the most notable thing about the encounter was the intensity she saw, reflected back in the gaze of the unicorn’s cold blue eyes. In retrospect, she would have thought a pony considered ‘the element of generosity’ would have looked away... rather than look on, unflinching. She would have to observe this pony more closely.

***

'Observe' was bit of an understatement. Once the plans for the Hearts and Hooves festival had been set in stone, Stanza had shadowed Rarity, keeping a close tab on her habits and tendencies. Any parallels to the flighty, socially obsessed nature of her cousin quickly evaporated, after seeing the alabaster mare’s almost demon-esque level of focus in her research of the armoire. Her nightly responsibilities kept her from constant surveillance, but the Guards were more than capable of filling her in on anything of note that she missed. Rarity’s intensity of focus had only increased, the more she studied of the Royal Armoire. More than a few times she had been told the mare had gone more than a day without eating, or even leaving the storeroom. Against her better judgement, Stanza had gotten in the habit of bringing her something from the royal kitchen, wrapped in plastic, to temporarily mask the smell. Placing it somewhere out of sight, she watched stealthily from the doorway in amusement, as the Unicorn’s stomach would take over her body, trotting about in a daze, searching for the elusive sustenance. More amusing, if not slightly concerning, was the fact she seemed to not care where it came from or whom it was intended for; food was a fuel she needed to push herself farther, and that was the end of it. Stanza herself could not imagine such an ability to focus. Slowly, some degree of respect had grown for the seamstress... then promptly taken a massive dive, the night everything almost fell to pieces.

***

“You’re not thinking straight Celestia-!”
Stanza didn’t care about the well-being of anypony else at the moment. Rarity’s disappearance into the hedge maze did not justify this level of risk, especially when the entire guard had already begun to search. The nature of the two white ponies relationship was irrelevant, the fact was, between the Royal Seamstress and the Princess of the Sun, the Princess would take precedent, no matter the circumstance. It was beyond mind numbing that the Princess, who by all other measurements was an invaluable fountain of wisdom, was so blatantly opposed to Stanza’s efforts to keep her safe. Celestia angled, trying to stride past her without addressing the concern, but being enrolled in dance lessons since the age of three had not made the pink mare slow on her feet. She sidestepped, rounding on Celestia and blocking her path in an unexpected show of defiance that surprised them both. Eyes narrowing, the princess’ expression, accompanied by two slowly uttered words, their emphasis sharp as a razor’s edge, was a combination that struck an unnatural terror into her very being.

“Move. Now.” Stanza steeled herself, gathering her purpose around her like an armor. It was nearly dark, and despite all the extra magical security the castle provided, the darkness had managed to attack Celestia almost every, single, night. Now she wanted to go outside, and play white knight, rescuing her lost maiden directly under the very nose of the very darkness that was hauntingly persistent in even the most safe environment.

“No.” Treasonous as it might have been, the word was practically spat. Of all the ponies in the world, Stanza could not think of any with stronger willpower than the one that stood before her. This was a pony forged through fire, blood, and the tortuous hoofs of fate itself; flimsy words and tentative pleas for caution would not stir the alicorn. Neither would logic, as she assumed Celestia was more than capable of realizing the dangers. The guards were already out, combing the garden for the lost unicorn. If Stanza could manage to distract her, just long enough, perhaps the guards would find the mare before Celestia forced her way outside. Analytically, her mind was almost overloaded, the strategic conundrum completely foreign to her, the question at hoof almost damning in the very act of considering it.

What would be the quickest and most efficient way to distract an immortal?

It came to her more quickly that she expected, but the nature of the answer made Stanza briefly wonder if the analytical side of her mind had taken a turn for the suicidal.

The answer was simple: Make her very, very, angry.

Celestia’s violet eyes seemed to burn, an acrid darkness flickering violently behind the surface. “I do not rule with fear. That is by choice. But if you intend to play such a vital role, you WILL ADDRESS ME WITH THE RESPECT I DEMAND, AND IF YOU INTEND TO STAY AT MY SIDE, YOU WILL HEED MY WORDS!” The very castle seemed to shake. It had been centuries since the Princess of the Sun had used the royal canterlot voice, even with its speaker in a weakened state it had an edge of terror to it, one that would have set Stanzas teeth chattering if she were any less resolved. But this was no time to falter. She had to push it farther, Celestia could easily fly over her head, abandoning the conversation altogether. Gathering her grit, she did something many ponies wouldn’t have dreamed of. She lashed back at the Princess as harshly as possible, telekinetic slap followed up by words meant to cut much more deeply.

“Why would I stay at the side of someone who’s meant to be so experienced, yet continues to be so utterly shallow.” A look of utter shock temporarily accompanied the red welt on Celestia’s face, though only for a moment, before her expression turned stony. Breathing heavily, Stanza continued to work herself into the most volatile frenzy possible, her words reaching a level of caustic that disturbed even her.

“For all your talk of what’s at stake... what we stand to lose... it’s just that, empty talk. The words might be easy to say: ‘the events of the next six months could echo into centuries, with careful handling, the sacrifices we make will result in the slim chance of the outcome not damaging Equestria in the long run, and if we fail than the alternative could be utterly horrific...’” Her satirized, straw man version of Celestia’s proposition left a bitter taste in her mouth, but she continued. “All of that was utter horseapples. A total lie! You’re not even the slightest bit prepared to make those sacrifices, and nowhere near that forward thinking! Too weak to even cast a simple nightly protection ward, yet you’re actions are no better than those of a filly, willing to run out and blindly risk yourself for a foalish pursuit, without even considering the long standing consequences... It’s a disgrace.”

Eyes closed in an effort to retain her self-propagated rage and a newly acquired sinking feeling of despair, Stanza congratulated herself glumly. There was not leader in history that would take such an outburst as anything other treasonous poison. What she had said was so unfair, so hurtful, there was no way she could apologize for it after the fact. ‘I was just trying to distract you, I didn’t mean it’ was not going to cut it. She waited for what felt like years for inevitable torrent of blows, whether vocal or physical, unwilling to meet the eyes of the princes, the shame of her words cutting her almost as deeply as they were intended to wound the recipient. Whatever Celestia had to dish out, Stanza knew she deserved it. Automatically flinching when the hoof touched her face, she opened one eye, her body still tensing. What she saw was entirely unexpected. Celestia was smiling.

“I chose well. Your dedication is ...remarkable.” This time, as she walked around Stanza, the pink mare did nothing to stop her, completely taken aback by the reaction. Briefly stopping, Celestia turned her head, giving a sideways look. “I admire your courage, my little pony... but your chosen method, a sleight of hand, trying buy time for the guards, sacrificing your own standing in the process...” The princess clicked her tongue. “Sleight of hand is my game, dear Stanza, and I’ve had thousands of years to play.”

The statement threw everything into question. Was Celestia even out of sorts in looking for Rarity, or was it entirely rational? Could the seamstress really be that important? Maybe there was an entire other sub-plan that she wasn’t aware of...

“You are right, of course.” Stanza looked to Celestia, completely confused on what she could have possibly been right about. “Going after Rarity in my current state is foolish; though I am not powerless, any drain on my magic now could tip the scale in one way or another. The smart, logical thing, would be to leave Rarity to the guards, and wait. A drop of sand on an infinite dune, immortality should have at least taught me that, correct?” Receiving a slow nod in response, Celestia continued “From a mortal standpoint, I can see how you would come to that conclusion. But what you don’t understand is what happens after that lesson. You detach, make purely logical decisions... and when you make those sacrifices of the few, who are certain to be lost, for the sake of the many, whose fate is murky at best... you begin to lose your center. Ponies don’t matter anymore, they become numbers, an infinite number of infinitesimal specks on a map that you’re no longer attached to. It’s a path to an empty and cruel existence, one that ends in a manner as tragic as the manner in which it begins.” The foggy, violet eyes carried an unspeakable pain, invoking a second wave of guilt that hit Stanza full force.

“Never cut yourself off from life Stanza. Even as a mortal, it’s a danger that everypony faces. Forming attachments can indeed be a great weakness, topple empires, destroy entire nations. But detaching altogether will destroy you entirely, leaving a frigid puppet as a leader in your place, its strings pulled solely by variables and statistics, devoid of the emotion and heart that made you a leader worth following in the first place.

It was a lot for the pink pony to wrap her head around. But the image of Celestia writing under the pseudonym of Bunni Tzu was no longer a comical to her... rather, it made perfect sense, like the last piece of an ancient, unsolved puzzle finally clicking into place. So much of the princess of the sun’s indentity was a careful mask, manufactured for the good of the masses, carefully tended to and managed to the point Stanza realized that she had no idea where the real Celestia ended and the fabricated one began. Rarity would have her work cut out for her...

Rarity! Stanza had completely forgotten about the ongoing crisis... Celestia was already at the garden entrance, preparing to cross the threshold into the darkness. Turning to Stanza, she gave her a silent look, conveying a question with no need of words.

‘Will you accompany me?’

Stanza smiled widely, preparing to cast the protective ward as she trotted to catch up.

“Into the gates of tartarus itself, my lady.”

***

Rarity had put Celestia at risk, but she was a completely oblivious offender. Because of the ignorance of it, Stanza couldn’t be nearly as angry with her. But drinking half the royal guard under the table was where she had drawn the line. Coarse as it was, Stanza felt completely justified about use of the bucket of water as a wakeup call. Well... maybe there was a small amount of sympathy, but Rarity’s immediate dubbing of her as ‘the royal consort’ had thoroughly killed any notions of guilt. If anything, she had to hold herself back from going to refill the bucket. After a refresher in dance, they had cleared up their various misunderstandings, and Stanza had explained her true purpose at the castle: Strategic event planning. For the element of generosity to offer her assistance, that much had been expected. What Stanza had not expected was how difficult she would be to get rid of. Six hours of being subjected to said nitpicking later, Stanza was chanting an entirely new mantra to herself:

“I must not strangle the Royal Seamstress...”

AN: Sorry I didn’t get to Twilight at the end of this chapter... but Stanza reached through the monitor and pimp slapped me in the face, demanding I stop being lazy on her character developement. It also was due to the fact I did nothing in the last chap. to clean up the thread of “who the heck is this Stanza pony” from two chapters ago, which I suppose those following had waited more than a month to have resolved. Woops.
Despite the Stanza focus, a LOT of plot points are fleshed out in the Celly/Stanza dialogue, and it (hopefully) offered a fresh perspective on Celestia. Ideally, it came off as much more relevant to the main story than the previous chapter... though I hope I didn’t tip my hand in regards to plot TOO much.

Symbiosis

Chapter 11: Symbiosis

Stanza’s irritation became more obvious as time drug on. They were nearing the fourth hour straight that Rarity had critiqued her plans, more and more details catching the alabaster mare’s eye. She simply could not leave the plans for the hearts and hooves festival as they were. Her lime green backup glasses were uncomfortable, digging in to the top of her snout distractingly. Shoving the glasses back onto her snout fussily, she briefly considered going back out to the hedge maze to locate her favorite, tomato-red pair she had misplaced, though memory of the debacle that followed her previous excursion through the maze quickly killed the notion.

“...ask her about the Sepulcher, little mare.” The recollection of Discord’s parting words picked at her concentration, dividing her thoughts. Annoyed at her own lack of attentiveness, Rarity flipped to a more recent page of the plans, trying to use the fresh material to regain her focus. The pink mare’s hearts and hooves festival plans read more like a battle strategy, extremely detailed movements for all key players, indicated by an hourly patrol-esque pattern for everypony from the guard patrols to Celestia herself. After a curt explanation from Stanza, Rarity was able to grasp the general shorthand of the plans, but as she analyzed the updated patterns there was a single symbol that remained foreign to her.

“Stannis-”

“Stan-ZA” Previously oblivious to the other mare’s annoyance, Rarity winced apologetically.

“Yes yes, my mistake. I really don’t do that intentionally, you know. But what is this single ‘x’ you have here?” Leaning over, Stanza repressed a sigh. The alabaster mare was just now getting to the movement plans for the night, which were easily the most detailed and extensive part of the portfolio, she leaned over... and frowned. Up to this point, Stanza had assumed that Rarity had been at least partially up to speed, but Celestia hadn’t even told her what part she would be playing in the festival?

“That’s the diversion” the resulting confused expression prompted Stanza to elaborate, “Well, it’s a more recent addition. The problem I kept seeing with any plan was that no matter how meticulous we were, somepony was going to eventually spot something. I mean, the second any noble-pony picks up on the slightest discrepancy in Celestia’s behavior...”

“It’ll spread like wildfire,” the alabaster mare finished slowly, concern growing at the realization of how juicy any gossip pertaining to either of the Royal Princesses tended to be.

“Right. So the strategy is to create that wildfire initially, completely focusing it on the pony nearest to the princess. If enough attention is drawn to her, than the diversion pony will effectively minimize attention to any mistakes the princess might make.” Rarity contemplated the idea, seeing the wisdom of it. Ponies could be extremely single-minded when it came to gossip: one slip, and a near obsession with the pony in question would develop. They would stare and wait intently as vultures, every small gesture having an increased potential to be read into or misinterpreted. More interesting than Stanza’s strategy, though, was it’s rather outlandish implication.

“How will a single pony manage to keep attention off of the princess the entire night? Standing next to the equestrian leader and icon, yet stealing the show? The distraction will have to be absolutely dazzling,” she gushed, excitement at the prospects in her voice. Stanza’s sigh was more of a hiss; Celestia’s stubborn insistence that Rarity had a vital role to play was beginning to make sense. Even in an area foreign to her, she adapted quickly, picking up knowledge as she went. Stanza had tried to censor the details Celestia had omitted through a general vagueness, but the alabaster unicorn had seen the hole in the plan, calling her on it almost instantly. Oh, why in the name of tartarus not? I won’t let the Princess get cold hooves now.

“The question you should be asking yourself is, ‘how will you keep attention off the princess all night?’” She stated it as nonchalantly as possibly, making her best effort not to laugh at the delayed reaction when Rarity finally caught the implication. She was the distraction. It wasn’t entirely meanspirited: as implied in the perks of her position, Stanza had decided the other mare had been kept out of the loop far too extensively. Surprise attacks were her forte, so why bother with a slower, less concise explanation? There would have been far more disclosed, if she had not already been sworn to secrecy.

“My..Matriarch take me-How in Equestria am I meant to do that? I’ve been planning on downplaying my appearance, and you- you-you-you you’re expecting me to upstage an alicorn? I… I may be at a bit of a loss on how to proceed…” Stanza’s immediate answer was a knowing smile.

“I have a few ideas, but it depends. How far are you willing to take this?”

***

Barely managing to get to the workroom before the panic got to her, Rarity took deep breaths, wrapping her forelegs over her head. This was obviously Stanza’s intention all along, and it had caught her completely off guard. This is wrong, it’s all wrong. Twisted as it was, the plan was solid, and as violently as she had argued against it she couldn’t come up with a better idea. Maybe I am just being selfish. Fear crept through her veins: She was sure that doing what Stanza had ‘suggested’ was completely impossible with the way things were now. She had yet to apologize to Celestia for the other night, after the previous distraction had thrown her off track. If she didn’t resolve things, this breach of trust would run the risk of ruining any chance they had in a future relationship. Would it be inappropriate to go see her now, so close to midnight? No! I need to figure out exactly where I stand first.

As if to deny that notion, there was a hurried knock at the door. Rarity opened it to find the pony she had just had in mind, anxiously pacing the hallway.

***

“It is not like my sister to make such a colossal lapse in judgment.” Celestia’s voice carried, filled to the brim with barely disguised ire. While she spoke, she flipped through Rarity’s most recent drawings with enough force that the seamstress was beginning to worry the papers might tear. It was the first time she had been alone in the alicorn’s presence since she had declined her advances, and the tension was nerve-racking. Focusing all her attention on Celestia would have been far too stressful, so Rarity contented herself to working and listening at the same time: the preliminary sketch of a ballroom dress she started had no real end result in mind, a product of toying with multiple concepts subconsciously.

“Princess, I get it. But Luna is under a lot of pressure. That’s not to say that you aren’t as well, but make sure you’re aware of how much she does on a daily basis.” Celestia clucked her tongue, pushing her mane out of her face.

“I see you picked up Aria’s love for all things Victuarian,” she said offhoofedly towards the sketch of a classic Sunday dress, more observation than criticism. Finally, she looked up “I am all too aware of how vital Luna is, which is why her absence has me in such a fit – and really Rarity? I’m ‘Princess’ now, while Luna is addressed by her first name? It is not in my habit to be a picky pony, but perhaps Luna has become more likable than me after all.” The joke fell flat: Rarity instantly saw past the jab, guilt hitting her as she recognized the wounded pony underneath.

“That’s not it,” she said carefully, “After the somewhat ambiguous events of the last few days, I did not want to come off as overly familiar.” a rubber eraser pegged her from across the room, bouncing harmlessly against her snout, but the distraction sent her pencil off course, leaving an awkward ‘check’ mark in the place of her typically straight lines. “How uncouth-“ her dismay was cut short by Celestia’s glare.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” Celestia rolled her eyes at the denial.

“You know what I mean. Save the ‘politically correct Rarity’ voice for the masses.” They trailed off into silence for a time, both refocusing on their respective distractions far too intently. Desperate to salvage the conversation, Rarity went with the first thing that popped into her head.

“So… Princess Luna and Twilight Sparkle… I can’t say I expected that. Twilight said for certain that Luna is fully recovered?” Celestia picked up the next batch of sketches, gritting her teeth.

“Oh, I’d say she’s recovered alright. Twilight did not earn her favored status by being slow: she picked up on the early signs of acute mana exhaustion before she even got Luna to bed.” While magic had never been Rarity’s strong suit, ‘acute mana exhaustion’ was a condition she knew for a fact was not trivial. It often played the part of a boogeyman for arcane 101, to scare foals from using magic trivially, but the threat itself was real. It could take months for anypony to recover from the exhaustion, and last time Rarity checked, Luna needed to raise the sun and moon every day.

“Isn’t that… I don’t know… really really bad for us?”

“Well it would be… If dear Ms. Sparkle wasn’t such a bookworm. If you’ve read those

“The bond is real? They bonded???”

“O-hoh. I wasn’t expecting that you stooped to such lowbrow entertainment.”

It was a trending premise in trashy romance fiction: A young mare would be going about her life, unhappy, often an earth pony, almost always mundane and ordinary. Then, in an entirely ridiculous and nonsensical fashion, an alicorn would drop into the mare’s life, sending it reeling. Semantics of the plot would vary of course, but eventually the alicorn would realize that the mare’s inner magic was ‘unique,’ and somehow set her apart from everypony else. The normal mare would fall deeply in love, keeping her affections a secret just to maintain her relationship with the alicorn, while the alicorn would grow more and more attracted to this mare’s delicious inner mana. It would always end in the same way, with a magical bond in which the two’s magical energy would be joined, usually occurring simultaneously with other activities, at least in the steamier reads.

“You see why it’s problematic? I’m not upset because Luna had a moment of weakness and wanted to visit a friend…” seeing Rarity’s still baffled expression, Celestia sighed, not looking forward to the inherit awkwardness that would stem from the following explanation. “It’s nothing like that romance fiction horsefeathers. Firstly, the bond was always meant to be more of a symbol than an ‘act’ as it is so frequently depicted to be. The fact that it can transmit mana is rather moot when you consider that a typical alicorn has exponentially more mana than the average pony. Of course, Twilight’s the exception, but I’m talking in general here. Secondly, it doesn’t just transmit mana: thoughts, memories, feelings, fears, along with a host of other things can slip through during the process. That’s why it was most common in marriage, and hasn’t been practiced in over a thousand years. I only explained it a few centuries ago to a pony researching differences between the sub-species neurological processes… there’s an innate sensuality to it, of course, but it’s really more of an emotional bond.” the alicorn brought a hoof to her forehead unhappily, “I never expected it to be so thoroughly perverted…” She noticed, with no small amusement, that Rarity had become bright red, and was almost comically focused on her sketching. Pushing the steamier bits of her mind aside, Rarity wondered glumly if Twilight’s connection with Luna had revealed her own presence at the castle: If so, that was one explanation she wasn’t looking forward to, as it would likely involve feeding her dear friend yet another lie, one which would have to be much more convincing than the first.

“How much do you think she knows already?”

“Well, she certainly knows something’s amiss. Possibly that it’s something to do with me specifically, I could tell by the tone of the letter. I’d wager she hasn’t worked out the details yet, at least. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.”

“You’re not seeing the upside though, Celly.” The scratching of the pencil accelerated. Rarity was reaching the apex of her focus, strategizing and sketching in tandem.

“Tell me… I’d honestly take any good news right now.” Turning to look at the seamstress, Celestia found herself oddly captivated, though the mare didn’t pause once to make eye-contact.

“Under normal circumstances it would be a bad thing, sure. The favored student of Princess Celestia starts dating Princess Luna, the whole scenario screams ‘gossip magnet.’ It’s going to be even harder keeping it away from the press. So why bother hiding it at all?” The gears in her mind turned faster, an alternate version of Stanza’s hearts and hooves festival plans playing out in her head. “Why not have Luna bring Twilight as her date to the hearts and hooves festival? Formally recognize them as a couple. The problem I had with Stanza’s strategy was that it focused far too specifically on me. Am I capable of distracting and entertaining an audience? Of course. The problem lies in the fact that regardless of where I am, I will be close to you. If ponies are constantly looking at me, the probability that they will pick up on inconsistencies is high. However, if ponies are looking back and forth, between interactions of two very significant couples, and if Stanza and I can pull off some preliminary plans we made earlier this evening, let’s just say they won’t be nearly as focused on us.” Carefully completing the last stroke of the sketch, Rarity was began to rouse from the daze. She wasn’t happy with the plan; Using her friend, somepony already socially awkward, as the center of attention at a social event was not an idea she found pleasant, all to aware how unfair it was. She looked up at Celestia: She was staring at Rarity, as if seeing her in a different light for the first time.

Something the tone of Stanza’s work had changed Rarity’s perspective. Now that she had a better grasp of the pink mare’s personality, she began to realize the obsession of strategy in her work was not something that could be chalked up to ‘mere paranoia.’ It became painstakingly obvious that Stanza knew far more than she did about the current circumstances: whenever Rarity mentioned the possibility of failure, even partially, Stanza wasn’t even willing to consider it, that burden glittering darkly behind her eyes. Whatever the nature of Celestia’s peril, it was no trifling matter, thereby she could afford no mistakes. As curious as she was, she forced herself to accept that Celestia would tell her eventually, forcing all speculation from her mind. If it was enough for Stanza to be to be so overly concerned about, she would throw herself into it full force, even if that meant the possibility of putting her friend in a difficult position.

“So, we’re a couple now, are we? What happened to ‘keeping things professional?’” Rarity froze at the words, pencil falling to the floor with a clatter. Mind trapped in the details, her plan had neglected to address that little issue.

“Well I- Stanza suggested-” Celestia’s eyebrow shot up.

“So we’ll just be acting then. It's a little cold, but I… I'd be lying if I said it didn't make sense.” The alicorn looked away, and the awkward moment of silence seemed to stretch on for hours as Rarity was lost in reminiscence. There were so many good things: Celly’s hidden playfulness she’d come to adore, idle time spent in each other’s company, and the feeling of finally being appreciated and understood. All of which struggled against her fear of the unknown. For some reason, the long forgotten memory of Celestia’s words to her during their ‘escape’ from the gala came to mind. Love won’t last if it’s perfect. There has to be mutual sacrifice.

“I don’t want it to be an act.” The appearance of her own tears astounded her, as if suppressed reservoir of stress was finally escaping through the liquid. “I’ve spent my entire life looking for something safe, my ‘happily ever after.’ Somepony who will always be there for me. Maybe that was misguided, but more than that, I’ve been looking for a place to belong. I’ve stuck between worlds for as long as I can remember, hoping to, at best, be partially accepted into either of them.” Accepting a tissue Celestia had quietly levitated to her, Rarity dabbed her eyes, clearing her throat. Glimmers of moonlight shown through the open window; A gust of wind accompanying wind extinguished the lit chandelier, dousing the room in grey.

“If I admit I’ve found the place I’m meant to be, I have to accept that it’s temporary. On the other hoof, I can’t lose something I haven’t found: if it stays in my head, as something to abstract to be pursued, it never dies.” In response, Celestia turned away, a pained expression on her face. It was a fear she knew all too well.

“Time has always been a cruel mistress, indifferent to both those within it, and those outside of it. I don’t blame you for distrusting it.” She hadn’t heard Rarity stand up. A hoof guided her muzzle to the seamstress’, lips welcoming hers. When the initial surprise subdued, chills ran through her body as she wondered how many millennia it had been since the touch of a pony had affected her so deeply.

“You’re wrong, Celly. Time is a gift,” Belief in the words strengthened Rarity’s resolve. This was fate, her proper course, her design. This was what she was meant to do. “It’s only cruel if you let it control you.”

When Celestia spoke next, her voice was halting, forcefully devoid of eloquence. There was no mask, no hidden meanings, and an utter lack of false optimism. “You deserve to know- I want to tell you… everything, but now isn’t the time.” She looked down, discouraged “Dropping such an unfair burden on you only a few days before the festival…” the kiss that interrupted her had an edge of desperation to it that the previous one had lacked, tongue caressing hers aggressively, stealing her breath away before parting , nipping her lower lip painfully. Shut up, I get it already, it seemed to say.

“Then tell me, after.” Rarity’s gentle kisses on her neck, and mane made Celestia die a little inside, her self-loathing running rampant: What she was doing to this mare was so incredibly selfish, and what she was receiving in return was far better than she deserved. Her whisper was hoarse, impotent, and fraught with heartache.

“I’m sorry I can’t give you forever.”

“I don’t need it. We don’t need it”

***

AN: Well, as of today, every scene to the end has been completely plotted out, it’s just a matter of getting them written. Please take into consideration that I’ve put a lot of thought into the ending. If anything, my writing this has been therapeutic, a way for me to work through personal issues, so ending it in a pointless, or overly grim/dark manner would be counterproductive. I’ve been toying with the idea of two longer (5-10k words) chapters instead of 3-4 short ones to finish up, as the last few bits will not be appreciated if left as cliffhangers. I’m not sure yet. Feedback and constructive criticism is welcome, as always.

Inversion

Chapter 12: Inversion

Rarity’s eyes blinked open several times, confused for a moment as unfamiliar surroundings came into focus. Violet curtains of Celestia’s bedchamber stirred suggestively in the morning breeze, the chirping of an single, all-too-enthusiastic bird told her it wasn’t late in the morning yet. The satin of the sheets tugged at her coat as she tried to rise, an unhappy groan broke the silence and a pair of forelegs snaked around her upper body. So many things around the room were broken or in pieces, pictures knocked off the wall, mirrors shattered; a vase hastily shoved off an out of place end table, which was now missing a leg. Then the memories of the previous night came flooding back. Moaning in embarrassment, she put both hoofs over her eyes.

“Oh Celestia take me…”

“mmm… didn’t you have enough already?” the voice behind her giggled coyly, hugging her close. It wasn’t until then that she realized her entire body ached: her horn felt like it had been chipped, her throat was sore, there were scratches along her front and underside, and her… er… posterior parts throbbed intensely.

“That wasn’t me, dear Princess … some demon from tartarus must have taken control of my body and ravaged you.”

“Would that make you ‘my little succubus?’” Rarity groaned.

“If I am to have a pet name, I would prefer it be anything other than that. You’re a faker, by the way.”

“Oh really?” there was a nibble at her ear, driving her mad.

“I thought you couldn’t use magic.” She asked quietly, breath a bit short at the memory.

“Well… it takes much more magic to raise the sun than it does to raise your dainty flank. I can’t say I was expecting you to raise me though. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting you to be so experienced; the ‘innocent and proper’ act had me completely fooled.” Rarity winced. It was true that she had been uncharacteristically aggressive; a mingling of fear, lust, and adrenaline had driven her to things she had never thought of in her most uncouth fantasies. She sniffed haughtily, not wanting the mare behind her to get the wrong impression.

“I’m not experienced, and find myself rather wounded by that implication. I just figured if I was going to bridge a several thousand year gap in experience I’d have to give it a little oomph.” Celestia started giggling wildly at that. Rarity turned around to glare at her. “What? What’d I say now?” Still giggling at her shamelessly, Celestia barely managed to speak.

“I’m sorry, -heehee- It’s just- hee- when you say ‘oomph’ like that -eheheh- it reminds me of that noise you were making when I-”

“Shut! Just. Shut up!” Leaping on top of her to cover her mouth with a hoof, Rarity glared at Celestia ferociously, ears splayed back, a fiery blush spreading throughout her face. When the alicorn looked sufficiently apologetic, she released her grip. Aware of their position, Rarity became more embarrassed, but didn’t move, in case Celestia started poking fun at her again.

“I do declare Ms. Belle, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the inside of a pony’s ears turn red before.” Rarity smirked down at her ruefully, rather fed up with only taking the teasing.

“Coming from such an old mare, I guess that means I’m special.” Celestia’s eyes narrowed, accompanied by the sudden spinning of the room. The royal seamstress found herself pinned on her back, an unamused alicorn holding her down.

“It’s called ‘vintage’ darling, and you’ll do well to remember it.” Being completely at the whim of the other mare almost took her ability to articulate from her, but she managed one final jab.

“Isn’t ‘vintage’ to ‘wine’ what ‘antique’ is to furniture-“

“ZIP THY LIP”

***

The grim undertone from the previous night was almost entirely drowned out by a cacophony of cheery morning reverberation: the clinking of silverware on fine china, the honey drizzled sound of Celestia’s laugh, and the echoing glory of the orchestra’s outdoors rehearsal all made the painful precedent of the previous night’s rendezvous all the more difficult to face. The gravity of the alicorn’s words were not lost on her, she simply refused to face the reality of them yet. Ignorance is bliss, and I will be blissful. With that in mind, Rarity dabbed her face with the napkin, gingerly, and put her most convincing smile.

“I’ve never found pancakes to be a particularly stimulating, but these are absolutely divine.” The alicorn beside her nodded in agreement, still cutting hers into more ‘princess’ appropriate pieces. Usually, when they ate together, they sat across from each other in one of the more private, smaller dining halls. They both were famished, however, and had agreed on a change to of pace, their ‘adventure’ taking them on a detour to the nearby mess hall. They must have looked ridiculous, sitting so close together at such a long stone table, one large enough to feed an entire garrison of the guard.

Naturally, it had not taken time for the castle staff to locate them, and attempt to ‘beautify’ their surroundings. Tablecloths, candles, and a shinier variety of silverware was all placed and exchanged before Celestia reached her limit and shooed them off.

“Aria always loved them as well. According to her, the syrup was key.” Aria again. It wasn’t that Rarity was ungrateful for the Royal Seamstress’ support; she just didn’t really understand why Celestia had to constantly reference her. She’d avoided mentioning their most imminent problem to keep the atmosphere in high spirits. As her spirits were already dampening, she decided it was best to address the issue at hand.

“Celly, Twilight and Princess Luna will be arriving later this afternoon, correct?

“Indeed. I received a letter from Luna while you were freshening up. They plan to arrive a bit before the evening” Listlessly, the princess’ fork lightly clinged against the plate as she maneuvered extraneous syrup to the top of the pancakes. “She was almost paranoid at my lack of anger, which I found to be a bit ungrateful. I’m not sure why she’d feel that way; I’ve never been particularly harsh with her.” Rarity almost choked on the pancake, hiding her disbelief in a series of polite, though unpleasant, coughs. Celestia gave her a flat look, eyes slit in suspicion, but declined to comment.

“Goodness. That strawberry nearly killed me. Do we have plans for their arrival?” She was getting better and understanding the alicorn, though there were still moments where it was incredibly difficult to discern whether or not the princess was indulging the more deadpan side of her humor, or being completely serious. When those occasions arose, the seamstress had found it was better to just pretend the comment went over her head.

“Yes, we’re going to meet them, and tell them everything, up front. Sneaking around would be seen as a further affront to Twilight’s intelligence” Rarity was glad she had just finished her pancakes; otherwise she might have choked again.

“The truth?”

“Yes. Honesty is the best policy, after all.”
More borderline deadpan humor. Now it was Rarity who glowered at the alicorn with slitted eyes. “Don’t leer at me so over a joke, Ms. Belle. We’ll inform the two of them of our relationship alone; after all, they’re hardly in a position to judge us. Luna isn’t certain, but she’s under the impression Twilight didn’t pick up anything during their bonding.” Her ire from the previous day was not present, though she still spit the last part out like an obscenity.

“Is there a reason why you find it so distasteful, other than its rushed nature?” Celestia looked at her thoughtfully, as if measuring the pros and cons of responding honestly to the query.

“It’s hard to explain. Normally I’d put it in terms of equivalency or biological diffusion.” She had predicted Rarity’s blank expression, inclining her head “You would understand it as an issue of baggage. It’s not something that should be done with anypony other than another alicorn.

“I daresay that sounds alarmingly elitist, Celly.” The princess waved her hoof, disregarding the statement

“No more than making the observation that an earth pony cannot raise the sun.”
“A false disqualifier. An earth pony can literally not raise the sun, while, from my understanding, anypony can form the bond, if the other party is an alicorn.” She hid a smile at catching the hole in Celestia’s logic, knowing without looking that the alicorn was studying her carefully. “You did say at one point that it’s my job to crosscheck you.”

“Full of surprises, as always.” The princess fidgeted, looking increasingly uncomfortable. “Like I said, it’s an issue of baggage. An average pony only accumulates so many scars in a lifetime. An alicorn is… an entirely different matter.” Rarity watched in curiosity as the alicorn pushed her plate away, gazing into the amalgamation of left over syrup and batter. “Imagine all the hardships you have to go through in a lifetime, all the dirty secrets, every betrayal and mistake. Now imagine a thousand lifetimes where the same sorts of horrible things repeat themselves. For a mortal, it’s easy to take a bad experience, and after repressing it, reveling in it, or learning from it; tell yourself it’s something that’s very unlikely to happen again. And on average, that would not be incorrect. Nonetheless, that ‘baggage’ accumulates in your mind, and stays with you to the day you die. Alicorns are not so blessed: the first ten thousand years or so, it becomes increasingly difficult to stay positive.” Celestia was beginning to look like she was in another plane of existence, her moodiness growing alongside the increasingly complicated explanation.

“Fifty-thousand years later, it’s practically impossible to separate, the negative influence becomes the focus, traumatic experiences begin to serve as desensitizing landmarks; a way to keep things straight. ‘This particular war took place just before half my blood relatives died out from disease, or ‘this change in geography occurred when my students banded together to overthrow me,’ or ‘this period of peace started right after I banished my-‘” the rest caught in her throat as she pursed her lips and looked away: “…My dearest friend. Anyway, my point is that, eventually, it’s almost too much for any alicorn to deal with. The bond doesn’t just open two individuals minds, it links them intimately, almost melding them together. If a normal pony were to get even a fraction of an adolescent alicorn’s memories, it would batter all at once, warping his or her psyche, possibly beyond repair.

Rarity’s heart was beating rapidly, beginning to panic at the most relevant implication. “But- What about Twilight!” The princess, realizing her gaffe, put a soothing foreleg around the seamstress and pulled her close.

“My theory is that you, along with the other elements of harmony destroyed the manifestation of Luna’s darkness when Nightmare Moon was vanquished. I had already purged a great deal of it myself… in the conflict that preceded her banishment. The intervention of both parties is likely why the bonding process did not harm twilight.” A flash of contempt mingled in jealously played behind Celestia’s eyes, fading as quickly as it had appeared. “Luna was really the lucky one.”

Trotting together out of the mess hall, Rarity realized she had caught Celestia in a lie. On their first meeting, the alicorn had frankly stated that neither she, nor Luna, could remember past three thousand years. Apparently, that had been massively off the mark. It led her to an unpleasant conclusion: If Celestia’s memory encapsulated such a massive amount of time, than it implied that the great library fire was also a fabrication. Rarity was beginning to suspect that Celestia knew exactly what her condition was. Her thoughts would have continued to even more dangerous musings if Celestia hadn’t roused her with an equally dangerous announcement.

“Oh, I sent your parents and invitation to the Festival a few days ago, by the way. “

“YOU DID WHAAAAAAT?” Celestia, uncharacteristically shaken, backpedaled at the explosive reaction, ears lowering slightly.

“I- you- As my date to the festival- I thought it would be rude not to invite your parents… did I misunderstand?”

On the edge of hyperventilating, Rarity slid down the hallway wall. It wasn’t Celestia’s fault, how could she know? Rarity once had every intention of taking that day to her grave, but this left her no choice. She closed her eyes, numbly preparing herself to recount one of the darkest moments of her life.

***

AN: As you might have guessed, this chapter got split in two. This damn story keeps getting longer when I’m not looking. Ending this chapter with the flashback I had in mind was pushing 5k words towards the end of the scene, and would have dwarfed the more… er… ‘happy’ things that happened in this chapter. Also, yeah, the pillow talk: unexpectedly awkward to write; that one scene took me a surprisingly long time to push through. I did my best to be suggestive, as opposed to blatantly lewd, but feel free to let me know if you think I pushed it too far. I went ahead with that scene not only because there was a metric-%^&*-ton of sexual tension already, but mainly because I didn’t want sex to be associated with the climax of the story. If it feels rushed, it’s meant to. As a new reader recently pointed out, Twi/Luna, without any sort of physical contact, are in a much healthier place relationship-wise than Cel/Rar is at the moment. Rushing things will come back to bite them. But if Cel/Rar was already in a perfect place, the story would be over, and they could both die in the proper Shakespearian fashion
...Totally kidding on that last bit
Constructive criticism is always welcome.

Regression

Chapter 13: Regression

The not so distant past was a gaping maw, a corona that swallowed up everything beyond its singular and obsessive focus. If the mare was asked to recount it later on, she would find she wasn't able to remember the days before, or the days after. The memory was a cancer, malignant, corrupting all adjacent recollection. Rarity lifted the window shade, a sentry, her trademark smile nowhere to be found, hair tied up in a hasty bun. She sported a black dress, one that would have complimented a funeral. Rage was pushed down into a container deep within herself, making it a spring loaded trap of damning proportions.

'I... It was me sis, I made them angry. It was my fault, so please don't get mad. I don't want everypony to fight.' Rarity visibly shuddered, trying to cast the memory aside. Now wasn’t the time. If she was going to do this, “big sister Rarity” had to disappear. The memory of Sweetie’s most recent injury set the rage glowing in her again, trying to escape. The foal’s foreleg had been broken, an untreated hairline fracture, and Sweetie had tried to hide it. Rarity had thought things had gotten better, only to discover too late now that the sole improvement was in the concealment of the damage.

She had tried to make things easier: So much of their expenses had been covered that they should have been living comfortably, but even those efforts had been in vain.

She had given them everything, yet nothing had changed. Unstoppable force meets immovable object. The resulting epiphany had shaken her to her core.

Her sister wasn’t suffering just because of their mother; every day, she suffered because Rarity insisted on taking the moral high ground against their parents,. It was her own self-righteousness allowing her sister to fall through the cracks. Now the board was set, and the pieces were moving. No longer would Sweetie suffer because of Rarity’s ego; her unwillingness to sully her hoofs. No longer would Sweetie experience heartache because her older sister –who had promised to protect her- refused to be heartless.
No more.

***

“The third bathroom is over this way…”
Ms. Belle didn’t care for this pony, this ‘Shady Pickins.’ Well, Ms. Belle didn’t care much for anypony, but that was beside the point. It could have been thanks to his garish coat and mane, a nauseating bright orange and blue. Maybe it was his name; it was, after all, a terrible name for a real-estate agent. It would have been much more fitting for a farmer, or some equally drab profession. It definitely could have been his gum that lead to her dislike; It was painfully obvious from the way he talked that he had partaken in an particularly loud piece of the said substance and didn’t much care for whether or not she was offended by the incessant smacking between words.

Glaring at the pony standing next to her, she shook her head. That bumbling husband of mine could really do something other than just standing around, staring at the wallpaper.
“Keep up, Roger!” she barked. He’s as slow and simple as always. Aloud, however, her barrage of insults at him was lacking the usual punch. It wasn’t that she particularly liked him at that moment, in fact it had nothing to do with him at all: For the first time in over ten years, Flemeth Belle was having a good week. It seemed that somepony (all of them idiots, regardless, for taking so long) had finally appreciated the genius of her art. She had distributed sample portfolios of her still life artwork to almost anypony who would take one. This, though, was the first serious offer she had ever received, a full-fledged job in the heart of Canterlot no less, although she didn’t like the name of the place. It was all the rage now days, this “Parlae” accessories; Popular or not, there was an unpleasant foreign sound to the name. She had shrugged it off. Foreign immigrants were always taking equestrian jobs, so she might as well quit hers to take one of theirs. When Parlae had told her she would start the following week, she had flipped everyone at her old job an obscene hoof gesture on the way out

“And as you can see, there’s a beautiful view of Jaspur Park right out of the living room.” Who cares about the view? Get to the price already you idiot. If Mr. Pickins hadn’t secured a buyer for their previous house so quickly, she wouldn’t be giving him the time of day. Bored, she turned to her side, ensuring that her second most useless daughter was still quivering next to her. Sweetie instinctively averted her gaze the moment she felt her mother’s eyes probing her. Flemeth sneered in disgust: What a sniveling little coward I’ve raised.

“The house is sufficient. What’s the starting down payment?” Mr. Pickins flashed a sleazy smile that made her skin crawl.

“The rent starts at 5000 bits a month” Balking at the quote, she could hardly cover her glee. It was more than she had, but it was also an absolute steal for a place like this.

“I won’t be able to pay it until the money for our old house comes in.”

“That’s totally fine, since I’m overseeing both transactions. If you’ll just sign now and write me a check, I’ll make sure it goes through the moment I get the bits from the pony buying your house.” She hesitated, eventually acquiescing. After all, it wasn’t like it was the first time she wrote a check for bits she didn’t have.

“Excellent. Now as soon as the third party signs both of these we’ll be in business.” Pickins trotted to the front door and opened it to mare that had apparently been waiting, dressed in an expensive black dress, her hat pulled low over her eyes. Wait. The first thing Flemeth noticed was how quickly Pickins attitude had changed. The stallion’s cheerful demeanor was gone, rather, he looked borderline uncomfortable.

“Okay, here’s my signature for the house, and for the condo.” Along with handing him two checks, the mare kissed him on the cheek and levitated him a heavy looking bag of bits from her satchel. “And here’s your finders fee.” Finder’s fee? Something about the voice was maddeningly familiar. The realtor took both of the signed documents and didn’t even look back at Flemeth as he trotted out, side by side with the other client, a lack of courtesy she found more disconcerting than offensive.

A flash of dark blue hair hidden under the mare’s hat only added to her uneasiness.

***

Parlae accessories was as elegant as it had been rumored to be. She had done more research since moving into the apartment. As much as she tried to stifle it, her excitement was growing to unprecedented proportions. The building -complex really- was part corporate office park, the kind seen in the high-end sector of Manhattan, yet splashed with color. Even in her infinite reservoir of cynicism, Flemeth could not come up with anything negative to say about it. If anything, it bordered on overly grandiose. The elite stigma of the place came in part from its enigmatic founder: Penelope Parlae. The CEO had never been seen in public. Occasionally, a gossip magazine would break a story with claims that the elusive pony had been caught on film, but the shots were always blurry, and the mare herself was typically quite covered up, almost always sporting a hat and some sort of scarf.
The inside of the establishment was sterile. She had come to the ER (Equine Resources) part of the building for her first interview, an unimpressive area sectioned off from the rest of the building. Perhaps that was the intended effect, as she found it difficult not to openly gawk at the interior. It was more oriented towards postmodern chic architecture than the exterior. There was almost too much white, although the walls and ceilings were almost reflective enough to be mirrors. Approaching the secretary on the third floor, she was almost instantly ushered in to what she thought was a meeting room. It took a few seconds for her mind to realize that was inaccurate. The massive room was a single office.

“Name?” The voice came from a ridiculously over-sized, wraparound desk in the center of the room. The enigma herself sat at the desk, her blonde mane and gray coat unexpectedly plain. The first thing that struck Flemeth was how much older the mare was, significantly farther along in years than she had expected.

“Flemeth. Flemeth Belle,” she hadn’t expected her voice to be so shaky. Preparing for this had been pointless. She was beyond intimidated

“Oh yes, you. Decent melons. Terrible grapes though.” Flemeth was completely lost. “The Still Life portfolio. Art. Why you’re here.” The pony sighed and shook her head before Flemeth could even respond.

“How do you feel about the Draconic isles?”

Flemeth felt lost again at the non-sequitur. “I’ve heard they’re… nice?” Unable to think of anything positive to say, she went with the overly vague. The mare continued to go about her business as if Flemeth hadn’t spoken.

“I don’t particularly care for anything out of Canterlot, myself. Tragically, it’s not all about me, and that’s where the stockholders have ‘suggested’ we build a new branch. Despite all the treasure hording, it’s absolutely horrific how hard it is for female dragons to get their claws on actual jewelry. Our team is solid here, but we desperately need artists there, for the local effort. You know, reading the flow of the place, coming up with concepts with ‘the local touch’ that will really drive home the sales.” Parlae said it like it was nothing.

“I just moved in to a new place to be closer to this branch!”

“And we just got the news that we’d be expanding. Anyway, it’s not all loss, since you wouldn’t want to move your family overseas with you. Not really any pony schools to speak of.”

“You expect me to just up and leave them?”

“I don’t expect you to. You agreed to. It’s in your contract, Flemeth. We can relocate you anytime we want. Or did you not read the fine print?” Parlae’s voice was almost monotone, devoid of sympathy. Balancing on the line between blubbering and breaking down completely, Flemeth felt a familiar bitterness creeping into her gut. This was supposed to be my second chance.

Parlae sighed, as if annoyed at the very idea of having to explain herself. “I didn’t intentionally mislead you. Consider the possibilities, for a moment: We will be the first to crack into this untapped market. As such, the company is prepared to offer you an almost obscene amount of bits to act as our lead artist at the new branch. Even more significant than that, think of the prestige! In a few years, you’d not only be sitting on a pile of bits, but also have the job of your choice as an artist with this job as a reference” The words were seductive, affecting the unicorn as they were intended. A fresh start.

“How much?” she mumbled, heart already sinking. Smiling victoriously, Parlae wrote something on a piece of blank stationary and placed it face down, sliding it over to her. Cautiously she turned it over. So many zeroes. It shouldn’t have been a hard choice: Make more money in a month than you’ve come close to having in your lifesavings, or stay with your useless, deadweight family and accumulate more debt for breaking the contract.” The choice was obvious. The choice was nonexistent. At that moment, she really hated herself.

“I…”

"Speak up dear."

“Please absolve me of the contract. It’s not possible for me at this time.”

“No.” It wasn’t Parlae who had spoken. Rebellious and unyielding, Flemeth would have recognized the tone anywhere. Her blood ran cold, as she looked up to confirm the identity of the mare that had just entered through the side door.

***

It should have been simple enough. A wealthy investor, with more than enough bits to spare had plenty of options when it came to buying into the bustling Equestrian fashion scene. But Penelope Parlae was not old bits. She had married well, receiving a near fortune from her late husband, (Celestia bless his soul) and had thought the opportunities in the city of Canterlot would be plentiful. Now that she was here, however, she just couldn’t bring herself to pick one. When the scent of money caught the nose of these Canterlot businessmares, they turned to timberwolves on the scent of blood. She simply loathed the incessant sucking up, and would rather jump off a cliff than deal with the amount of flattery that appeared to be the norm. After the third long day of scouting in a row, she had retreated to one of her only sources of refuge in Canterlot: the nearest bar.

The tavern was far more of a dive then she had expected from the outside. Like so many things in Canterlot, the beautiful exterior served to disguise the rot under the surface. Her opinion of the bar was driven even lower when she noticed the only other patron a seat away from her was definitely under the drinking age.

“How’s your wine selection?” She asked in vain, already suspecting the worst. The bartender started when he realized he was being spoken to. It must have been a slow night

“Oh, we have red and uh… white.”

She made no effort to hide her sigh “Just a pint of cider then, please.”

“Garbage.” The insult was spat with such vehemence she almost physically jumped. Somepony is an angry drunk. She looked over discretely, relieved to see that it was not her who was being addressed. The alabaster mare next to her was looking through a catalogue of sorts, seeming to be very unhappy with its contents. Curious, more out of sheer boredom than anything else, she leaned over to look. It appeared to be an amateur accessory catalogue… at first glance. It was hard to see past the low quality of the images, but when she finally did, it was obvious that the quality of the accessories themselves was more than above par. The disparity between the catalogue and product was massive.

“I rather like that bracelet myself.” She said, indicating a silver and ruby composite. Instead of a look of irritation from the mare, she received an expression filled with gratitude.

“You do? Really?”

“Well, frankly, yes. And other than that, the selection is extensive, composition is superb, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen better fakes.” For some reason, as she spoke, the alabaster mare –barely more than a foal, really- appeared to be inflating with barely contained pride

“I feel the same way. You are wrong on one count, though.”

“What’s that?”

“These aren’t imitations.” Brow furrowing, Parlae looked down at the prices of the catalogue. She had actually thought they were a bit high for fakes. If these were real...then the average price was insanely low

“Are… Are you serious?” The alabaster mare signaled with her hoof for another drink, slipping a small gemstone to the bartender when she thought Parlae wasn’t looking.

“It’s a travesty, isn’t it? The designer- er, so I’ve been told, has almost unlimited access to gems, some trade secret. The price is low because the gems aren’t registered…

“-Which she can’t afford, because she has to sell them priced as imitations.”

“Correct.”

“Well that is a crying shame.” The pony next to her was still trying not to grin, though the influence of alcohol worked much to the detriment of that effort. It couldn’t just be coincidence. Parlae tapped on the picture of the bracelet again, shrewdly trying to lure the mare in.

“I’m telling you, if I met her muzzle to muzzle, I’d drop five, maybe six times that many bits in her hooves for that bracelet, no questions asked.” It was a dirty trick for certain; she just couldn’t bring herself to ignore the possibility. However, there was no sudden influx of greed or desperation that she had seen at so many other investment meetings already. The alabaster mare simply glowed, smiling radiantly to herself.

Parlae excused herself briefly to go to the restroom, to freshen up and gather her thoughts. When she returned, she was dejected to find that the alabaster mare had already left.

“She left ya a note” the bartender indicated the catalogue left on the counter. Inside the catalogue was a piece of flowery stationary and a small parcel. Tearing the envelope open with her teeth, she dumped its contents on the counter, puzzled at first, before her confusion dissolved into a filly-like grin. It was the very ruby and silver bracelet she had pointed out before. The note read: Sometimes the right words can be worth more than all the bits in the world. Thank you.

“Oh, I’m not done with you yet.” This was it! Her investment opportunity, she could feel it. How do I find her though? The listed address is a P.O. Box. Slowly, she looked to the barkeep.

***

It was easy enough to ply the bartenders tongue loose after threatening to report him for serving underage patrons, and taking bribes to do it. Once he had stammered out a name, it was a matter of time and resources. Rarity was what her husband would have called a “high maintenance” investment. She refused to be named publically, insisting that Penelope be the name and image associated with the brand. It had something to do with her home life, though that was all the gray mare was able to ascertain. As Parlae accessories grew as a brand, Penelope began to feel guiltier at the lack of proper credit. Rarity was a genius, and one of the most giving ponies she had ever met. She was also stubborn as a mule. She kept her reasons for remaining anonymous quiet for nearly two years before she finally let them slip during a lunch break

“… You… Hate… Accessories…?” To say the gray mare’s voice was incredulous would have been and understatement. Penelope was completely taken aback.

“It’s terribly rude to stare at someone with your mouth open like that, you know.”

“You. Hate. Accessories?”

“If I keep deflecting the question, are you just going to keep repeating it in a different inflection?” Nonchalantly taking a bite of her daisy sandwich, Rarity looked at her like she was the one talking crazy. Penelope didn’t even know where to start. It made absolutely no sense.

“Do you-“ Her accidental increase in volume drew stares from around the restaurant, so she leaned forward and whispered. “Do you have any idea what our net worth is? This company has my name, sure, but underneath it is one hundred percent you. And you tell me now you don’t even like it?” Rarity shrugged like it was no big surprise.

“Guess I’m just in it for the bits.”

“Horsefeathers!” I know you better than that. She had always watched her language in front of the younger mare, so the expletive caught the unicorn’s attention. As much as she respected the brilliance of the unicorn in front of her, respect needed to be a two way road.

“I don’t, as you say, hate them.” Rarity’s voice was quiet, tinged with longing. “I find them to be very binary. I can’t make an bracelet or a necklace with somepony in mind. Well, I can- Just not most of the time. In my opinion, they’re much more of an impersonal process. It’s like we’re ‘climate scientists’ as opposed to being the pegasi weather patrol. We look at the big picture, the trends, and market to the largest unsaturated niches we can find. Sometimes it feels more like science than art.”

“So… assuming you don’t actually want to be a Pegasus, what are you aiming for?” Rarity looked away awkwardly.

“…dresses”

“Come again?” Rarity bristled at having to repeat it. Looking directly at Penelope, she forced herself to repeat it with more confidence.

“I want to design dresses for clients.”

“Well why didn’t you say so before? We can open up a line, I’ll make sure you get whatever you need-“ She stopped as Rarity held up a hoof to silence her with an expression that almost looked insulted.

“See, that’s it exactly. You’ve never even seen my dresses, yet you’re ready to whip out the checkbook.”

“I’m sorry that I consider you a friend, and thereby would support you without hesitation. Terrible habit of mine” Preparing to storm out, she was almost relieved when Rarity caught her hoof.

“I am your friend. If you’re my friend, understand that it would go against my principles to do what you’re suggesting.”

Penelope sat back down, defeated. “How so.”

“I don’t want to dictate fashion. If a pony with enough prestige designs something hideous, it’s often still considered to be ‘brilliant.’ I loathe that about the industry and would go to any length to avoid perpetuating it myself. I want to create something, with my own horn and hoofs, and have it be judged by its merit alone. My work would not be judged fairly if it started out attached to a high ranking label.” It’s ego then. Ridiculously inflated ego, Penelope thought, chuckling to herself.

“That foresight is rather astute, and your resolve is... well your resolve is something else entirely. I have to ask, though, why have you stayed this long? Don’t get me wrong, Celestia knows what we’re going to do without you, but I don’t want to hold you back. If you’re going to work your way up from the bottom, it’s going to take some time, and I know you have more than enough saved up to start yourself up”

An icy resolve settled in the alabaster mares eyes.
“I made a promise to somepony. My dreams will wait.” the matter of fact nature of her voice sent a chill down Penelope’s spine. Wisely, she changed the subject.

“Speaking of dreams, what will you call it? Your shop.”

Rarity looked at her slyly, “How do you like ‘Carousel Boutique?’”
It certainly wasn’t the worst name she’d ever heard. Penelope blinked at her quizzically, “It’s a good name, but- Oh, Luna’s flank, it’s kind of like you’re-”

“-coming full circle, back to the beginning again.”

“You’re really not going to let me help, are you?” Rarity shook her head, politely refusing. The other mare sighed. “I’m going to regret asking this… but… exactly how long have you had that name picked out?” For celestia’s sake, how far in the future do you plan?

“Hmm… a while, I suppose”
The cryptic answer told Penelope all she needed to know.

***

“I don’t understand.” Flemeth’s eyes were wide, terrified, bouncing back and forth from Rarity to Penelope. “Why is she here?” Penelope switched places with Rarity, standing off to the side.

“She, calls the shots around here, the sisters have mercy on your soul.” What Penelope meant as a joke only served to further mortify Flemeth, who was now visibly shaking.

“You rotten, rotten foal. We’re done here. We don’t need your char-“

“YOU THINK THIS IS CHARITY?” Rarity roared, an inferno raging behind her eyes. Despite herself, Flemeth fell backward hard, her flank hitting the floor with a thud, legs still shaking. “Let me explain something to you, dear mother.” Rarity seethed, closing distance as she spoke. “To be honest, I’m surprised you had it in you. I thought the amount of bits I offered would be more than adequate to send any heartless shrew bounding for the next ferry to the Draconic Isles. Perhaps your soul is not as entirely black as I thought- LOOK AT ME.” Using her hoof, Rarity roughly grabbed Flemeth’s jaw, forcing the quivering pony to look, picking up exactly where she left off.

“Because of that, and only because of that, I will not insist that you take the post at the Draconic isles. However, allow me to remove the illusion of choice: I. Own. You.” Flemeth wrenched her head away, practically screeching.

“NO. I’ll work off the debt if I have to!”

“No, you won’t. That condo you just moved into? It’s my building. The old house you put on the market without an ounce of foresight? Also mine." At first she was tempted to laugh off the ridiculous claims, then something clicked; the elder unicorn connected the dots, her despair more prevalent by the second. She shut her eyes, as if wishing it was all a dream.

“You own… you were at the condo”

“Yeah. That was me.”

Her mother smiled wickedly, convinced she had found the one flaw in the scheme “You wouldn’t kick Sweetie out, your own sister. This is just another empty threat”

Rarity inclined her head. “You’re right, I wouldn’t. But our government is a complicated thing. Did you know, for instance, if they find a filly’s living conditions unacceptable, legal custody is transferred to the closest willing and able relative? I think being homeless might be considered unacceptable.” There was a moment of silence as the invisible hammer dropped. Sensing the finality of the trap, Flemeth had no retort. Staring at her daughter as if truly seeing her for the first time, she shook her head. You really have changed, Rarity.

“…What would you have me do.” The words were empty, broken, defeated. Rarity didn’t smile, gloat, or revel in the victory; the flames in her eyes started to dim, gradually fading away into nothingness.

“I won't actively make you do anything. You’re your own mare. You’ll stay at the condo, work here five days a week, and father will watch Sweetie at the house in Ponyville. While he’s in the canterlot rehabilitation clinic for the next month or so, Sweetie will stay with me.” Her mother looked up at her, carefully controlling what otherwise would have been a much more violent reaction.

“You’re not going to let me see them, then?” Rarity cocked her head.

“Like I said, you’re free to do what you like with the weekends. It might be best to give Sweetie a little while to normalize without you around though.” Nodding, the pony wiped her eyes somewhat foalishly. It might be best. You don’t have to pretend like your giving me a choice

Watching her mother weep pathetically in the silence was a conflicted experience for Rarity. On one hoof, it marked the end of a battle she had been fighting for as long as she could remember. On the other hoof, no matter how she justified it, the ugly truth remained; this was her own mother she had just twisted to pieces, beaten into submission, reduced to a sobbing pathetic mess.

Mommy, it’s okay now, please don’t cry. Everything’s going to be alright, you’ll see. Rarity’s heart ached to say those words, to embrace her mother and take the pain away.

You don’t have to right to do that anymore. It’s the price you paid.
Whatever was left of Rarity’s childhood died with that realization. She trotted to the door, intending to allow the sobbing mess that was once her mother to retreat with whatever was left of her dignity.

“You won’t have to worry about me lording over you here, mother dearest, as I’ll be moving on to greener pastures at the end of this week. I actually have a new shop in ponyville under construction. Ms. Parlae is a wonderful pony to work with though, you’re in good hooves.” Penelope, if only out of sympathy for the pink unicorn, tried to affirm that assessment as they passed her.

“I really did like your melons.” Given the circumstances, Flemeth’s nod of appreciation was uncommonly courteous. The two walked towards the exit in silence, the clip-clop of their hooves echoing through their sterile surroundings. As they came closer to the stairway, a host of regretful sentiments rang out in Rarity’s mind, each one harder to smother than the last.

I never wanted this

No part of me enjoys this

I always wanted to believe in you

I hate that I hurt you

I hated manipulating you

You’ll always be family

I’m sorry

I love you

They reached the staircase without a word spoken. Rarity watched as her mother continued the descent without her.

“Mother”

Halfway down, Flemeth turned to look. There was no hope in her eyes, no expectations, only a carefully hidden glimmer of fear. The alabaster mare inhaled sharply: for a moment, she didn’t see her mother. She saw Sweetie, quivering below her, filled with dread, as she had seen so many times before. Pushing her sister from her mind, Rarity spoke. They were the only words she would allow herself to say to this pony beneath her. The only words this pony deserved.

“If you ever lay a hoof on Sweetie again…”
There was no anger in Rarity’s voice. No coercion. Only simple statement of fact:
“…I will destroy you.”

***

The alabaster stood at the top of the stairs for what felt like hours. Her reflection in the glass below looked oddly foreign, unfamiliar and empty. She tried to think of what she would say to her sister when she picked her up that night. Perhaps it would be better to say nothing at all. There was this indescribable disconnect from her emotions, like some vital magic circuit had come unplugged in her brain. Maybe she was just tired. That was probably it. Perhaps she could make something. Making something would help. She felt better when she was fixing things. It was all going to be fine. She could follow her dream now. It was time, wasn’t it? Yes, yes… it was time. Her thoughts drifted in circles, a comforting carousel of platitudes and prosaicisms accompanying her long into the sleepless night.

***

AN: As you can see… that flashback kinda became a flashback within a flashback. It started with me wanting to do a decent job lining things up with cannon. I know I took a few liberties, but hey, at least I tried. I felt that it was better to at least attempt to tie up the Rarity/Sweetie sideplot (not that kind of plot -_-) rather than leave it hanging permanently, before the real meat of the finale kicks in. It was a good opportunity as well to get in some extra development of Rarity, highlighting what she's capable of if she's truly dedicated to something and out of options. *ahem.* Hopefully, I at least managed to fill in a few blanks. Well, regardless, I’m scared Sh@#less of the next few chapters, mainly because almost everypony is in them. Especially the H&H chapter. Seriously. SO MANY PONIES to keep track of.

Sorry if this chapter seemed overly depressing. Next few chapters will be much more varied... for a while... *maniacal laugh*

Catalyst

Chapter 10: Catalyst

Twilight lay in the grass, looking aimlessly into the star speckled void. Her foalhood memory was laced with nights such as these. Dedication and excellence took a higher toll as she grew older; demands of nightly, intensive research had left her little time to spend with her beloved night sky. Stars, complex, vast, and intricate as they might be, did not change in an average pony’s lifetime. Well… I suppose I can’t really call myself an average pony then, can I? Remembering the moment made her want to squeal. It was almost impossible to even think about her favorite constellation now without devolving into a giggle fit. ‘My very own star. The tiny purple sister star of the Gemini. Squeeeeeee-‘ A flash of blue in her peripheral vision revealed that her stargazing companion… wasn’t exactly gazing at the stars. Twilight instantly tried to quell her ‘geeking out’ wiggles, the unflinching gaze of the beautiful pony laying just out of foreleg’s reach brought a heat to her face.

The illusion was not perfect, unfortunately. Despite a small breeze ruffling the tall grass around her, it left her untouched, her coat completely still. Frowning, the unicorn tried to ignore the small break in her suspension of disbelief. You should be happy Twilight, this is enough, isn’t it? By all rights it should have been. Luna’s initial reveal had left her entirely overjoyed… but small, temporary moments of unhappiness had been more frequent of late.

Self-doubt was the culprit. Something about the entire series of events felt so unbelievable, so unreal. Luna was real enough, and even though the nature of their relationship was long-distance, the fact that she received dream visits almost every night from the royal mare should have been confirmation enough… yet during the day, doubt surfaced time and time again, leaving a small part of her paralyzed in fear. The months preceding their rendezvous had been some of the loneliest and most miserable of her life, even if the exile was self-inflicted; What if she had just snapped? What if these dreams were an incredibly realistic manifestation her mind had created to deal with the isolation, the trauma of being pushed away, discarded by yet another motherly figure whose duty came before her daughter, surrogate or otherwise. Squeezing her eyes shut tightly, Twilight grit her teeth: this is real; this is reality, even if it’s a dream. I would never think of Luna like this otherwise, I couldn’t. I-
Abruptly, the rustling grass beside her and accompanying warmth of somepony drawing close simultaneously reaffirmed her faith, while spiking her pulse significantly.

“My dear Twilight,” the voice quivered uncharacteristically, “invading the privacy of thy thoughts was not our intention, but as we are more… attuned to this realm, the struggle in your heart radiates like an aura.” Having already picked up that Luna’s relapse into measured, formal Canterlot speech indicated a significant amount of personal discomfort, Twilight looked up, a dismissal dying in her throat at the sight of the other mare. Luna had always been the very ponyfication of tranquility; now involuntary shudders in the shadow of the alicorn’s deep blue silhouette that hovered over her temporarily took her breath away. From the current angle, though only for a moment, a portion of the night sky itself appeared to shake.

“We… apologize. We put you in a position where you could not in good conscience, decline our advances. We took advantage of your good nature, and perhaps presumed too much.” Had Luna been looking at Twilights face, rather than deeply into the ground, she would have seen the lavender unicorn desperately trying to force words from her lips. Twilight had never seen the princess so ashamed, all attempts at forming a cohesive sentence died in her throat, deemed either inadequate or overly condescending. Silence only worsened the situation, as Luna drew the entirely wrong conclusion from it. “We will take our leave now, and trouble your dreams no further-“

“NO!” Twilight lunged to her feet. Having tripped over her tongue enough times to imprint hoofprints into it, the desperation worked against her, taunting, seeming to dangle coherent speech just out of her reach. “I-… I- I- I-“ Stuttering only earned her a confused look. “It’s not- I’m not- your missing- rather-I.” Pausing, she cleared her throat, but the realization that the princess was likely holding back tears seem to knot it back up instantly; it’s result was an awkward series of grunts and unsuccessful attempts to relieve the tightness. Combined pressure from the hurt and distance in Luna’s eyes finally broke the bind on Twilight’s tongue, though the content of the outburst would have knocked anypony off balance: “OH FOR CELESTIA’S SAKE- HORSEFEATHERS! APPLE BUCKING TARTURAS DAMNED MATRIARCH MASTICATING MOUTH AND VOCABULARY ISN’T WORTH A FORNICATING FOAL’S FANNY WHEN I NEED IT MOST!” For a few moments, all Twilight could do was sit down, panting, relieved that whatever foul magic of fate responsible for holding her tongue was now finally dispelled. Wait… She heard that. Every word of it. Hoof covering her mouth in horror, she turned, not particularly looking forward to Luna’s reaction. With a posture mirroring hers almost identically, Luna sat across from her, watching silently, her expression almost a bit too emotionless. Seeing that she was no longer going to be imminently abandoned was enough for Twilight, however, sending a visible wave of relief through the lavender mare’s entire body

“We will wait for thee, to recover thy scattered faculties.” The sing-song, half rhyming nature of the old dialect made Twilight rather certain she was being made fun of, the slightest beginnings of a smile playing across Luna’s muzzle; a shadow of amusement that vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

‘Living for thousands of years would do wonders for my eloquence too, miss smarty hooves...’ But now wasn’t the time for jibes.Trotting over to her, Twilight turned around, sitting gracefully with her back between Luna’s slender legs. The alicorn started slightly, unable to contain her surprise at the gesture, but she did not pull away, leaning into the smaller mare ever so slightly. Dramatically as their relationship had begun, mutual shyness had kept their progress at a complete standstill. Even though it was simple, and fairly innocent in nature, this new level of intimacy was not lost on either of them.

I felt how humiliating and frustrating it was for you. A year after I was accepted into Celestia’s magic academy, I had a brief period of downtime, in which I ran into some old friends from kindergarten on my way home. I just wanted to talk, but they saw everything I said as bragging, completely fixated on the idea that I was only trying to talk down to them. Even my attempts to apologize for whatever I did to offend them were seen as condescending. No matter what I said, or how many ways I tried to fix it, they refused to see any of my efforts in a positive light.” Old as the memory was, Twilight hadn’t expected it to move her as much as it did. Coughing in an attempt to clear the pain from her voice, she felt the nuzzling again.

“I was so frustrated, Twilight. Intense as I may have seemed, I was overwhelmed the moment I arrived Ponyville. A thousand years, and I had missed so much… so many borderline familiar faces hovering just beyond the edges of my vision, ponies that looked similar but were so very different. It was invigorating, frustrating, and exhausting all at the same time.

Shaking her head, Twilight smiled. The alicorn was completely oblivious of her own strong points. “That’s the thing though. See, unlike me, you pushed on, discouraging as it was, refusing to give up. It was mind boggling to me that you weren’t willing to let the misunderstandings stand, even for a second. I know it’s a weak parallel, but …I never tried to talk to those kindergarten friends again. Just didn’t bother, even though I occasionally saw them around Canterlot. It was too discouraging, too hard… too painful. In your place, I would have flown back to the palace and waited a few centuries, relatively speaking, before even bothering to try again-”
Luna’s caresses were no longer focused on her back, rather her beginning to focus on the front of her body, intensifying the smoldering feeling in her stomach. If she didn’t know better, she would be under the impression that the alicorn was intentionally trying to drive her off topic.
Twilight’s head began to hurt, most likely from the strain of consistently failing to get the point across, her natural talent for conciseness seemed to have taken the night off.

“I don’t know,” Luna teased gently, “judging from what you’ve said it… just sounds like you got little crush on me.”

“Believe it or not, I’ve had crushes before.” Twilight rolled her eyes, trying to ignore the fact that Luna’s hoof was consistently trailing lower. “I may not be the most experienced mare, I but I know the difference between a crush and… whatever it is I’m feeling now.”

“So what is it that separates the two, dear Twilight? What sets me apart from...” my sister. She may have not said, it, but it didn’t keep the lavender mare from receiving the message. It was a difficult question, but not an unfair one. Luna knew of Twilight’s infatuation with Celestia, the subtext was plainly obvious in her letters, though it was a subtext her sister was either oblivious to, or had habitually ignored.

“You let me in.” The unicorn’s voice was full of self-realization, emotions ravaging a shaky voice, the words as much of a revelation to herself as they were to the Luna. Tentatively, the alicorn wrapped a foreleg around her shivering waist, pulling her closer. “You didn’t try to shield me from your emotions, or try to hide them from me.” As dreadfully inappropriate to mention Celestia as it might have been, she wasn’t sure she could stop the torrent of words even if she wanted to, years of repression seemed to dissolve with each passing sentence. “Celestia would claim that I’ve aided her countless times, that my friends and I have been instrumental in ‘saving the future of Equestria,’ and that all our experiences together have been valuable lessons to both of us. The only thing I’m truly certain of is the latter. Whether they originate as threats that are real, exaggerated, or manufactured, as paranoid as it may sound, every conflict we’ve been through feels like it was pre-evaluated to be a carefully vetted learning experience with a proverb at the end. If there was ever a true threat… some part of me doubts she’d even bother to tell me.”

Luna winced guiltily at the all-too-accurate estimation, saddened at the contempt of the sentiment. She found only a small relief in the fact that their current orientation didn’t require her to hide the reaction from Twilight.

“If you were the same way, always maintaining a controlled and calculated distance, I would have never seen the similarities between us. I would never have fallen for you… the real you. Even though we have much in common… I don’t think there is anypony else like the real you.”
Luna’s left foreleg linked around hers, carefully lifting the other mare her onto her hindlegs, while gently pivoting her so their eyes could finally meet; It was a single smooth motion, almost dance-like in nature

Staring hungrily at the unicorn’s lips for only a moment, Luna suppressed the temptation, lowering the vulnerable Twilight gently to the ground, pushing her softly onto the grass; the unicorn stared up at her, as if worried that if she broke the visual link between them, the princess cradling her gently might vanish forever. Pliable in the alicorn’s hooves, Twilight surrendered her heart completely.

Gazing into the enraptured violet eyes beneath her, Luna was relieved she hadn’t relented to her yearning and spoiled this moment with something as pedestrian as a kiss. Certainly, a part of her wanted to kiss the lavender unicorn deeply, along with a whole host of other things, freely giving in to the throes of passion. But a pony could miss so much with closed eyes… Luna would have given up every star in the sky to avoid missing this perfect moment

In a life-altering instant, Luna saw into Twilight’s soul. It was a beautiful picture of the jaded intellectual, finding hope despite previous abandonment of all naivety; she wanted luna, and everything she represented: Love, companionship, someone who understood her completely. And in that brief omnipotent span of time, she had no doubt that Twilight saw into her soul as well… saw everything: Saw the fragments of nightmare moon that still resided within her, saw the moments where she sat on the moon, cursing Celestia’s name, and watched in amazement as Twilight accepted it all in an unconditional embrace. It was something she had never experienced with anypony else. The gaze went unbroken as Luna reveled in the long forgotten joy of experiencing something wonderful for the first time. There would never be another pony like this one… never in a million years; In Luna’s mind, that wasn’t the slightest hyperbole. She would make this pony was hers and hers alone. Hiding the emotions swirling within her was only partially successful, as her voice tremored, both soft and insistent:

“Then what worries you so deeply… fair mare of the moon?”

Twilight was ashamed of the foalish doubt now, after they had bonded so closely. Closing her eyes for a moment, she decided Luna deserved the truth. “I just can’t get it out of my head that I’ve not actually seen you since this all began. I’m terrified that maybe I’ve finally lost it. It’s such a good thing that it’s difficult for me to believe… the very fact that I ‘wake up’ from all our encounters is a little scary.”

***

I shouldn’t have told her.

Twilight sat in her desk chair, completely awake, with a blanket wrapped across her shoulders, currently in the process of beating herself up over a mistake. A princess has responsibilities, you should have left things as they were. Speaking of which, where’s your responsibility, you stupid filly! What were you thinking telling her something so needy, what exactly did you expect to happen, that she would just shrug it off and tell you it would all be okay?” There was no easy explanation for her actions. For once, analysis and logic and flown completely off the table, and in that moment of weakness Twilight Sparkle had made the terrible mistake of telling the pure, undoctored truth. She fully expected Luna to get angry, or at least irritated. After all, it was the worst, most idiotic, unscientific excuse she had ever had the displeasure of hearing. ‘I know you already gave me an irrefutable piece of evidence I can use to prove this one way or another, but I’m too scared to look at it.’ Not her finest moment.

Shockingly, Luna hadn’t shown the slightest hint of irritation. Twilight couldn’t believe the look of relief on the other pony’s face as the royal princess of Equestria looked halfway torn between laughing and crying. “How silly of me, of course; I didn’t even think of how odd our interactions must have felt from your perspective, dear Twilight. Because the realm of dreams is such a natural extension of home to me, I often forget how duplicitous it can be for anypony not equally attuned.”

Ears drooping with the realization of how silly and nonsensical her concern was, Twilight had opened her mouth to apologize and amend it, but she was cut off in the form of a caress, falling silent as the princess’ dark hoof stroked her muzzle.
“Shhhhh. Not another word. In a matter of moments, you will wake up. You will go to your balcony and open the window, and then you will sit in your chair and wait.” It finally dawned on her what the princess intended.
“Please don-“
Her words were cut off by the sudden reappearance of her bedroom. Kicking herself all the way, she had followed the instructions, and now waited, unable to keep still. I might as well do something productive while I wait. Twilight lifted a nearby book of the shelf with Telekinesis. Remaining sleepiness had caused her to drop the book on her desk a bit too roughly, raising a mini cloud of dust-

Wait …
…
…
…
“NONONONONONONONO! SPIKE! GETUPGETUPGETUPGETUP!

As the resulting shrieks rang out from the library, neighboring ponies quivered in their beds, praying to Celestia that the scary, screeching creature from Tartarus would leave peacefully, preferably without killing the local baby dragon, who, for whatever reason, seemed to be the tragic focus of its rage.

***

Spike wasn’t upset. He got upset when Twilight did something unfair or excessive, like making fun of his crush, or the one time she had made him make a checklist, for checklists that counted her checklists of checklists. Meta-checklist aside… ‘Upset didn’t even come close. Throughout the entire period of what Spike considered to be unapologetic dragon torture, a single thought ran through his mind.

“Cleaning, at 4:00… on weekend morning… Twilight… you’re a monster.”

***

The abnormal heart palpitations had started around half way through the flight. Luna had entertained the notion of turning back, eventually decided against it. She would be fine, it was the same distance to Canterlot as Ponyville at this point, and the only true advantage Canterlot would have held was her sister’s magic… which she knew all too well was not a viable option. Pushing through the pain, the palpitations had gotten worse, until they took on a panicky, familiar beat. She knew it all too well; it was the same beat she heard within trapped within Nightmare Moon, the moment the elements began the process of removing her, draining her corrupted magical power to practically nil. Celestia had raised both the sun and moon for over a thousand years… there’s no way I’ve exhausted my power in the paltry few months I’ve held them both.

Ponyville library was a welcome sight, though she found it a bit odd all the lights were on at such a late hour. The landing was less than ideal, the harsh stop jarring her spine. She heard a faint muttering coming from the stairs. A few moments later, a baby dragon in a particularly sour mood came up the stairs, grumbling to himself. She wrapped her wings around herself, in an attempt to avoid the awkward questions her appearance would raise. It looked like she would remain undetected, when the baby dragon flicking a glance her way; Two seconds later, Spike did a double take, his eyes widening significantly.
“AHAH! A curtain disguised as an alicorn! I won’t be falling for your tricks anymore, four-thirty in the morning…” Luna didn’t know Spike very well, but she was starting to get the very firm impression that he was not much of a night dragon. As he turned to leave, Luna breathed a sigh of relief… or tried to, her lungs convulsing in a coughing fit. Collapsing on bent forelegs, she gasped raggedly, a brief pitter-patter of claws on wood her only indicator that Spike had returned. “Pr-… Princess!” the dragon trailed off, running back out the door and down the stairs, hopefully looking for Twilight. I did promise to see her, after all…
After the convulsions ceased, attempting to sneak in a wheezy breath resulted in a more severe coughing fit, one that further restricted her flow of oxygen, darkness narrowing her vision to the width of a pinprick. Hoofsteps thundered up the stairs, a moment before the darkness engulfed her entirely.

***

AN: Just to ward off any immediate confusion, whatever is wrong with Luna is not in any way related to Celestia’s more permanent condition. While another chapter focused solely on Twi/Luna was not my intention, I’m in the process of bringing the characters closer together, so most chapters will be better integrated from now on. Also, Chapters 1-7 are in the process of being freshly edited and updated, thanks to awesome new editor Tricky-Step. If you’re at all interested in Gilda as a character, or even if you hate her as a character and would like a decent explanation to why she’s kind of a jerk, his ongoing story: Griffon a Hard Time, is highly recommended.