Forever and Again and Again
“Do you like it?”
Twilight started. “Princess!” Whirling round to face Celestia, she managed to twist her legs across her chest and fell to the stone floor in a heap in front of the stained-glass window she had been staring at. “I’m sorry! You were late, and I thought maybe—”
“It’s alright, Twilight,” Celestia said as she bent down to nose Twilight back to her feet.
“But the gardener said that you don’t let anyone come in here! And the guard said that—”
Celestia laughed. “Twilight, you’re a princess now. No part of the castle is off-limits to you. Not even this place.” Celestia spread one wing, sweeping it in a grand gesture across the oblong room, the light filtering in through dozens of stained-glass windows painting the marble floor every color there was in Equestria.
“Thanks,” Twilight said, rising back to her feet, her head bowed a little.
Celestia leaned in conspiratorially. “Though just between the two of us, the guards were ordered to simply admit you after you snuck into the restricted section of the Royal Canterlot Archives at age six.”
Twilight blushed. “You knew about that?”
“Of course. Who do you think set up the alarm spells?”
“But Princess, there aren’t any alarm spells on the Royal Archives.”
“Not that make any sound,” Celestia said, smiling.
Twilight tilted her head. “What’s the point of an alarm spell if it doesn’t make any noise?”
“Because, Twilight, anyone who can get through the spells I have guarding it is far too dangerous for the Royal Guards to handle on their own.”
“Oh.” Twilight sighed, looking down at her reflection in the polished stone floor. “I’m still not used to thinking like that.”
“You have a long time to learn,” Celestia said, setting a hoof on the smaller pony’s shoulder. “And besides, it is not always good to think like me.”
“But Princess, you’ve ruled Equestria for a thousand years. You’re wise, and make good decisions, and you know practically everything!”
“You know as well as anypony that I don’t know everything.” Celestia smirked. “I hear there’s a young mare, not even twenty years old, who has worked out spells that I struggled with for centuries.”
“Only because you taught me!”
“I have had many students over the years, Twilight,” Celestia said, lifting her head. “None finished the spell but you. You may not know everything, but your talent at magic is unsurpassed.”
Twilight straightened up. “Thank you, Princess.”
Celestia laughed. “Twilight, please. I’ve been telling you, you can call me Celestia. Especially when we’re in private.”
“I know,” Twilight said, sighing. “It’s just so weird! Being a princess, trying to remember when I’m not supposed to use titles…”
“To tell you the truth, Twilight, it has nothing to do with you being a princess now. You have always been very special to me.”
Twilight’s blush returned in full force, the smaller alicorn shifting awkwardly from hoof to hoof. “Thanks, Princ—er, Celestia.”
“Princer. Now that’s a new title.” Celestia lifted one hoof to stroke her chin. “Perhaps I shall have to get it added to the list.”
Twilight coughed, turning her head in an exaggerated motion as her eyes swept the hall. “So! What is this place?”
Celestia stepped out into the center of the room, waving her wing down the long row of arches, each separated by multiple stained glass windows set into the walls. Broken sunlight streamed into the room, painting the white stone with myriad colors. “This is where I keep my most precious memories. They don’t all fit into my study, after all.”
“Your memories?” Twilight trotted after Celestia. “What do you mean?”
Celestia slowly walked down the center of the room, colored light flowing over her white coat as she moved. “After a while, most ponies have a tendency to forget history.” Celestia waved her hoof. “I don’t mean individual ponies, I mean all ponies. Names get forgotten, deeds fade and blur together, and only a few historians remember what happened.”
“And you.”
“And me.” Celestia took another step, raising her hoof to point at the stained glass window on the opposite side of the hall. “Can you tell me who those ponies are, Twilight?”
Twilight sprung forward to examine the window more closely. “Well, that’s General Ironhoof of Trottingham, and Commander Gallacious Gale of Cloudsdale.”
“And what about these other ponies?” Celestia’s hoof shifted down on the window towards a trio of ponies – a unicorn, a pegasus, and another earth pony – standing in a group.
“That’s Colonel Farrier, though judging by the stripes he was only a major at the time the window was made. He invented horseshoes – the game, not the shoes – after his defense of Seamount from the Prench navy by bringing down their sails with iron bands hooked around their masts by catapults.”
“Very good, Twilight. And the other two?”
Twilight bit her lip. “Uhm… well, I don’t know for sure, but if I remember right, that’s Captain Merriweather. She was in charge of the cumulonimbus formation at the Battle of Whitefeather. And that’s… uhm…” Twilight stared at the earth pony, then sighed, her ears falling. “I don’t recognize him.”
Celestia opened her mouth, only to be cut off by a torrent of words from Twilight.
“Wait! That’s Corporal Cob! He scavenged provisions for the EUP after the Prench spoiled their food with the lutefisk stockpiles they stole from the caribou.”
“That’s very good, Twilight. I’m impressed you remembered them all.”
“Thank you, Princess.” Twilight looked around. “I did recognize most of the ponies here, but they’re all very old. Why are these windows here? Did this used to be a meeting hall?”
Celestia shook her head. “No, Twilight. I moved them here once they were replaced in the main hall by new ones.”
“New ones? What do you mean? I’ve never seen any of these windows before.”
“You wouldn’t have. These were all replaced long before you were born.”
“Wow. I knew they were old, but…” Twilight stared at the window. “What happened to the new ones?”
“As I said, I replaced them.” Celestia walked up to the window with the five ponies on it. “With different windows.”
Twilight glanced from Celestia to the window. “But why? Aren’t they important?”
“Why? Hm.” Celestia looked out through the colored glass for a moment, the broken light painting her face a dozen hues. “Tell me, Twilight; do you know what kind of tea they liked?”
“Tea?” Twilight stared blankly up at her mentor, then at the window, then back again, sinking to the stone floor and covering her head with her hooves. “I don’t know! Why? Is it important? Did one of them invent tea?” Twilight lifted her head. “Or maybe it’s a trick question. Yes. One of them probably hated tea and burned it, or threw it into the sea, or—”
Celestia shook her head. “Twilight, this is not a test.”
Twilight blinked. “What?”
“You see, Twilight,” Celestia said as she lifted one hoof, slowly sliding it over the figures, “I think, to really know a pony, you must know how they like to take their tea.” She moved her hoof to the top of the window. “Ironhoof wanted it strong enough to stand a horseshoe in; I’m afraid he did not remove the leaves from his tea before drinking it.”
Her hoof slid over to the pegasus at the top of the window. “Now, Gale liked it however I did, no matter how terrible it was. I’m afraid poor Gallacious had a bit of a crush on me.”
Celestia’s hoof slid downwards. “Farrier was an experimenter; he tried just about every type of tea, but always with three drops of honey. Cob despised tea, he would only drink coffee, and even after the lutefisk dump, he continued to drink his from the ruined stores.” Celestia shook her head. “I’m afraid his tongue never quite recovered. And as for Merriweather…”
Celestia tapped her hoof on the glass. “Merriweather thought that anyone who needed coffee or tea was weak, as she never needed it to wake up in the morning. Merriweather never did learn that the truly important thing about tea was not the tea, but whom you were sharing it with.” Celestia smiled. “Always impatient, that one.”
“Wow,” Twilight said, staring for a moment before she laughed quietly. “And you said you don’t know everything.”
“Only most things,” Celestia said, turning her head and winking.
“But wait… why does that matter? How does that explain why the windows got replaced?”
“Because, Twilight, nopony knows how they liked their tea.” Celestia turned away from the window. “Some ponies will remember Gale’s postwar time in the weather service, or Ironhoof’s retirement in the Hayseed swamp. Captain Farrier might be better remembered for horseshoes than he is for his role in the war, and I think he would like it that way.” Celestia shook her head. “Cob and Merriweather are hardly remembered at all. But nopony remembers who they were, not really.”
“Nopony except for you, you mean.”
Celestia smiled and bobbed her head. “But I don’t need a window in the hall to remember them by. If someone comes for an audience with me, I would like for them to see a pony with whom they might someday share tea.”
“But what about history?”
“What about it?” Celestia walked down the hall. “There is history made in every generation. There is no reason why they need to see the search for the Crystal Empire of 740, or the befriending of the Breezies in 467, or the baking of the Great Cake of Oxford in 984.”
“The Great Cake of Oxford?” Twilight stared at the stained glass window, adorned with minotaurs and ponies alike.
“Yes.” Celestia nodded towards the window. “I thought it might be nice to commemorate.”
“But that wasn’t even that long ago! Why did you have it replaced?”
“It kept making me hungry.” Celestia paused, staring at the towering pastry for a long moment. “It was a very good cake.”
Twilight rubbed her foreleg with her hoof. “So which ones did we replace?”
“Oh, Twilight. Don’t worry about that. You’ve earned every window in the Great Hall, and probably a few more besides.” She looked back at Twilight and smiled. “And I won’t even have to replace them.”
“Huh? Why not?”
Celestia brushed Twilight’s wing with the tip of her own.
“Oh, right,” Twilight said, looking back at herself. “I still forget I have these, sometimes.”
“It’s alright, Twilight. You’ll get used to them. You’ll have plenty of time, after all.” Celestia walked past Twilight, slowly strolling back towards the entryway.
“Wait.”
“Hm?” Celestia looked back over her shoulder.
“I recognized most of these—well, other than the cake, one, obviously—but I couldn’t figure out who she was.”
“The one you were looking at when I startled you?” Celestia turned around to face the window in question. An aged unicorn lay reclined with a book spread open across her forelimbs, her coat several shades of pink and gray beneath her purple robes as stars gleamed in the sky overhead. “Ah, yes. Scíma lived a very, very long time ago. I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of her.”
“That sounds like Old Equish.”
“It is.”
“Wow.” Twilight stared at the stained glass window, her eyes widening. “Wait, does that mean that this window predates Luna’s banishment?”
Celestia laughed, shaking her head. “No. It is only about six hundred years old; there was a fad back in the early 330s to name your foals in Old Equish rather than the modern tongue. They thought it made them sound more dignified.” She laughed again. “I didn’t have the heart to tell them they were pronouncing their names wrong.”
“Wow. That’s kind of embarrassing, actually.”
“I never told most of them.” Celestia lifted a hoof to set it flat against the window. “I told her, though. She thought it was funny.”
“Who was she?” Twilight asked, tilting her head.
“She was a very special pony,” Celestia said, closing her eyes.
“Well, I guessed that much. She did get a window, after all.”
“I suppose so.” Celestia leaned forward, resting her horn against the glass. “Would you believe that she was worried about it?”
Twilight blinked. “Worried about getting a window?”
“No. Worried that I would get rid of it.”
“Oh. Well, you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t.” Celestia opened her eyes, looking up into the purple eyes of the pony in the window.
“Why did they hide her cutie mark?”
“They didn’t.” Celestia’s hoof slid down the glass to rest on the pony’s robed flank. “It was here originally. It was very beautiful.”
Twilight took a step closer. “I did notice that part of the window looked kind of funny.”
“Well, I’m afraid I’m not quite as good at repairing stained glass windows as the pony who made this.”
“Wait, you repaired it? I didn’t mean—”
Celestia shook her head slightly, never breaking eye contact with the glass pony. “It’s alright. I just couldn’t bear to ruin the window with a sloppy star.”
“So what happened to it?”
“A colt threw a rock and broke it around the time you were foaled.”
“Wow,” Twilight said, glancing back towards the exit before doing a double take. “Wait, how did a foal get out into your private garden?”
“Oh, he didn’t. It was still in the Great Hall back then.”
Twilight tilted her head. “Wait, it was still in the great hall? I thought you said you replaced these when…”
Celestia smiled sadly. “I do, ordinarily. But I may have been a little selfish.”
“Princess…” Twilight looked from Celestia to the robed pony, then back again. “Who was she to you?”
“She was my wife.”
Twilight nearly fell over again. “Your wife?”
Celestia nodded her head, finally breaking eye contact with the window to look back at Twilight. “Yes.”
“I didn’t know you were ever married.”
“It isn’t common knowledge.”
Twilight licked her lips. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”
“You didn’t.” Celestia still wore the same little smile. “They’re happy ones.”
“I’m sorry, you just seemed—”
“Sad?” Celestia met Twilight’s gaze. “One of the reasons I don’t tell many ponies is because I don’t want them feeling sorry for me.”
Twilight looked away. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know.”
As Celestia stepped forward, Twilight began to move out of the way, only to be wrapped up in a large white wing, the feathery limb tugging her against Celestia’s chest.
“Princess?”
Celestia laughed quietly. “I thought I told you to stop calling me that.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” Celestia stepped away after a moment, standing alongside Twilight as the pair stared out through the tinted glass, the garden beyond only barely visible as shadows behind it.
“What was she like?”
“Smart. Funny. She loved to read.” Celestia paused. “And take a little more than her fair share of the blankets.”
“So she was a scholar, then?”
“Head of Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns; before that, she was head of the Astronomy department. She was quite gifted.”
“Really? But I thought I knew the name of every famous astronomer.”
“She never was very famous for it. Or anything, really.” Celestia stared at the glass. “She didn’t really like attention very much. As I found out when I first met her.”
Twilight arched an eyebrow. “Came on a bit strong?”
Celestia laughed. “No. I just was a bit too interested in her cutie mark. I thought she was a prophecy come true when I first met her; it was only later that we fell in love, after I scared her off a few times.”
Twilight blinked, looking up at the taller alicorn. “Prophecy?”
“On the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars will aid in her escape, and she will bring about nighttime eternal.”
Twilight stared. “What does that have to do with her?”
“With her cutie mark,” Celestia pointed at the glass pony’s flank, “I thought she might represent the stars.”
“Oh. So you thought… she was going to free Luna?”
“I did.” Celestia bowed her head.
“But that wasn’t supposed to happen for another six-hundred years!”
“I thought she might become an alicorn.”
“Oh.” Twilight’s eyes fell to the floor, picking out the outline of the pony on the polished stone. “I’m sorry that she didn’t. I would have liked to meet her.”
Celestia set her hoof on Twilight’s back. “You’d have a lot to talk about.”
“Yeah! Like, what you were like back then, and what history was like back then, and why ponies took so long to figure out how comets work, and—”
“You could ask me those things.” Celestia’s eyes twinkled. “In fact, I’m fairly certain that you already have.”
“I know! But it would be a different, you know, perspective.” Twilight gestured vaguely with her hoof.
“I would have liked for you to have been able to meet her. But,” Celestia looked back at the window, “If she had ascended, you might never have become my student in the first place.”
“I guess that’s true.” Twilight’s ears fell. “Do you miss her?”
“I do,” Celestia said, “But not every day. It isn’t so hard, after a while, not if you don’t dwell on it.” She shook her head. “You do miss the dead, but everypony does.”
“What is it like, anyway?” Twilight tilted her head. “Living forever, I mean.”
Celestia rubbed Twilight’s back. “Well, you’re about to find that out, aren’t you?”
“Slowly. A little warning would be nice.”
“That’s funny. She said the same thing.”
Twilight sat for a moment before squeaking loudly, her face turning scarlet as she pulled away from Celestia’s hoof. “Princess!”
“She said that, too,” Celestia said, smirking.
“Ugh.” Twilight buried her head in her hooves. “You’re terrible, you know that?”
“Oh, I know.” Celestia chuckled. “She made sure to tell me that every day. Sometimes more. And she kicked me. She had surprisingly hard hooves.”
“Surprisingly hard as in harder than you’d think, or… wait, you’re just changing the subject.” Twilight looked up. “Really, how hard is it to see someone and know they’re going to die?”
“Well, you know that they’re going to die too.”
Twilight stomped her hoof. “You know what I meant!”
“Well, for a normal pony, half the ponies they ever meet will die before they do. For us, it is all of them, but I don’t think it is really any different, moment to moment. Or if it is any different, nopony could ever explain the difference to me.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
Celestia looked down at Twilight. “You know, a lot of ponies had very funny ideas after my wife died, that living forever would be very painful. But it isn’t. Everypony has loved ones die. It would be selfish to think that we’re any different just because we live longer.”
“Yeah, I kind of figured. I mean, my grandparents died when I was a foal, so I kind of remember them, and I remember I loved them, but I didn’t really know them, you know?” Twilight gestured vaguely. “I just wanted to know if I was, you know, missing something.”
“Wise.” Celesta took another glance at the window. “When she was dying, she was more scared about what would happen to me when she was gone than she was about herself.”
“Well, it makes sense logically,” Twilight said. “Once a pony is dead, they can’t really feel anything. It’s only living ponies who feel sad, or happy, or anything else for that matter.”
“You don’t believe in an afterlife?”
Twilight blinked. “You do?”
Celestia draped her wing over the smaller pony’s back, tugging Twilight in closer to her side. “Not exactly. Sometimes, though, I see things that make me wonder.”
“Things? You don’t mean ghosts, do you? Because ghosts—”
“I mean magic. Tell me, Twilight, what is Clover’s first law?”
“Magic can never be created or destroyed, only changed.”
Celestia nodded. “Just so. I think we’re more than just our bodies; I think we’re our magic too. And while our bodies may go away, our magic, it goes out there into the world when we die.” She waved her hoof in a wide sweeping motion. “And sometimes, that magic, it comes back and finds its way into another pony.”
Twilight sat down under Celestia’s wing. “I’m sorry, but that’s really hard to believe, Princess. I mean, cutie marks are never the same.”
“No one has ever proven that to be true, Twilight. Sometimes, I think I’ve seen the same cutie mark twice.”
Twilight narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure? Because I’ve seen ponies with pretty similar-looking cutie marks before. Minuette and Doc Turner’s marks look almost the same, but if you get up close to them—”
“For a long time, I was not.” Celestia tilted her head slightly. “Like you, I did not believe in such things. But then I had the opportunity to examine a very familiar-looking mark up close, and realized that there was no mistaking it.”
Twilight sat there for a moment before sighing, straightening up and brushing her mane out of her face. “Ugh. Well, if anyone would have seen it, it would have been you.” Twilight shook her head. “Still, reincarnation seems kind of far-fetched. And kind of creepy. I mean, what if your wife came back to life and you met her as a foal and she didn’t remember anything?”
Celestia stared at the window in silence for several long moments, long enough for Twilight to begin to shift uncomfortably.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
Celestia shook her head. “You have nothing to apologize for. I have spent much time thinking on that subject, Twilight. More than you might think.”
Twilight looked up at Celestia expectantly. “And?”
“I decided in the end that it would be best if I said nothing.” Celestia exhaled slowly. “Even if I did know for certain that I was right – that the same marks meant they were the same ponies, born anew – it would be wrong to tell them.”
“Wait, why? If you knew— ”
“Tell me, Twilight. If I had told you when you got your cutie mark that you were a famous navigator born anew, what would you have said?” She smiled gently. “Hypothetically.”
Twilight examined her distorted reflection in the polished marble floor. “I see. You’re afraid I would have thought I had to become a navigator, just because you thought my cutie mark looked the same.”
“And even if you did not, how was I to know?” Celestia swept her hoof through the air. “I have seen many ponies with marks that were strongly reminiscent of other ponies. But if I am right – if ponies are truly granted a second chance at life, a blank slate – then what is the point if they are simply repeating the same life anew? Who is to say that they chose right the first time? Perhaps they were destined to be an astronomer, or a sorcerer, or a showmare. It is not my place to decide for them.”
“I guess that makes sense. But even so, I’d still want to know.”
Celestia nodded. “I would as well. But you see, Twilight, anything I said would be coming from the Princess. Not Celestia, but Princess Celestia, Scion of the Golden Throne, immortal ruler of Equestria. It would be very hard for anyone – especially a foal – to see it as anything short of a command. And that is why I resolved that should I ever see a pony with my wife’s mark again – no matter how much I wanted to believe – that I would never tell them.”
“You’re right, but it seems kind of…” Twilight rolled her hoof in the air. “Self-sacrificing.”
Celestia chuckled. “Twilight. I have survived six hundred years without her presence. If we were truly destined to be together once more, I could easily wait a few more for her to decide to pursue me on her own.”
“What if she didn’t?” Twilight asked quietly.
Celestia shrugged. “It would not matter, so long as she was happy. We had a life together; it would be terribly selfish of me to demand two.”
Twilight shifted against the larger alicorn. “Wow. That’s really mature of you.”
“I should hope so. I am over a thousand years old.”
Twilight grinned. “Plus, after spending six hundred years looking at her flank in the window, I bet you were probably bored with it anyway.”
Celestia tapped Twilight gently on the back with her wing. “You know, you were a lot less cynical about this the last time we had this conversation.”
“Huh? But we’ve never had—” Twilight glanced up and spotted Celestia’s smirk. “Oh, har har. You know, I’m starting to understand why your wife used to kick you.”
“It took you a lot longer than it took her. She wanted to kick me the first time we spoke.”
Twilight rolled her eyes, nudging Celestia with her shoulder as she rose back to her hooves. “Come on, let’s go see if they’ve brought our tea out yet.”
“Oh? What kind of tea did you ask for?”
Twilight shrugged, slipping out from under Celestia’s wing. “I asked them to bring two cups of what you had last time.”
“Mmm.” Celestia glanced back over her shoulder at the stained glass window as the two ponies began to amble out, side by side.
“Is something wrong, Princess?”
Celestia smiled. “No, I don’t think so.”
Author's Note
Inspired by Nyronus' Forever and Again, and specifically, this comment.
I'd like to thank every member of the Writeoff Association who gave me feedback on the original version of this story all those months ago during the "Title Drop" competition.
And finally, I'd like to thank AShadowOfCygnus for doing a reading of this story.
