The Equestrian Board of Economics was one of the country’s most important boards. It met on the first Tuesday of the month every month, without fail. Even if that Tuesday had an social event, this extremely vital meeting was held, and all members of the board were expected to come. It was one of the things that made Equestria the political powerhouse it had been for over 300 years.
It also bored Celestia half to death.
That sentence could be applied to almost all of her duties as Princess of Equestria at this point, of course, not least because she wanted to just go out and have actual fun every once in a while. But if she were to be honest, the EBE meetings bored the absolute horseapples out of her.
As the chairpony droned on about the problems with the economy of the day, Celestia was looking out the window above her. The room the EBE met in was one of the most beautiful rooms in the entire palace; at least, Celestia thought it was. It had patterns all around the room, of meetings past and famous events from pony history, which spiralled up around the building before stopping. Then, after that came a huge glass domed window. It was perfectly smooth, built to see the sky and how beautiful it was on the nights that came and went. Sometimes, Celestia just lay there all night long, looking up at the sky.
It wasn’t because of her love of how beautiful the cosmos were; no, Celestia did this because of her sister, Princess Luna.
Or as the ponies of the modern age knew her, Nightmare Moon.
The sound of a gavel jolted Celestia out of her funk. Her eyes met the chairpony’s, who was unimpressed. She chuckled nervously. Then, the chairpony spoke, his dull glare going off Celestia to face the rest of the room. “…And with that, this meeting is adjourned.” He stood, getting off his seat, and with that, the rest of the room’s ponies followed his example, standing to leave.
Well, not all of them. Celestia was still sitting, her train of thought returning as she flicked her eyes upwards, looking at the large domed window at the top of the room. The electronic lights that had been installed were dimmed to a low beam, just before the final board member left.
It was night now, and she could see the moon even as she occasionally gave it a little push along the sky. Her sister was trapped on that place. Even hundreds of years after what had happened, she still thought about that day like it had been just yesterday; her memories were as clear as water.
When her sister had become jealous, Celestia had become conceited; she craved attention from anyone she could, and her self-assurance had been great enough that she’d alienated Luna. She’d been very different as a young mare; she’d been arrogant, greedy, and attention-seeking, and although she still had those traits, over a thousand years in office had taught her self-restraint.
But learning self-restraint afterwards changed nothing. It wouldn’t stop Luna from being possessed by the Nightmare. It didn’t stop her from feeling the weight on her chest that came whenever she made an important choice.
A single tear fell from her eye, trailing down her cheek.
It wouldn’t stop her from failing Equestria.
It was only a few years until Luna would return. And then what would happen? Would Luna still hate her, down on the inside? Would she still be an awful sister? Would her ponies still put her on such a pedestal that she would no longer have any true friends?
At that moment, a shooting star streaked across the sky, in front of the window. Celestia knew that it was just a myth; something parents told their foals to help them get to sleep at night. But she’d always longed for her days of fillyhood; the days where ponies would treat her just like any other pony.
“I wish that I had somepony else to talk to,” the ancient alicorn sighed, her gaze trailing the shooting star as it arced across the sky. Cadence was fine and all, but she had only recently ascended to her status. She still acted as if Celestia was above her.
To tell the truth, Celestia knew that almost everyone else in Equestria had it better than her. While she had to sit on her throne, smiling and dealing with a bunch of stuffy old farts, everyone else had freedom. While she raised the sun by day and moon by night, other ponies could laugh, play, and have fun in the fields. She sighed. Sometimes she wished she hadn’t accepted the position of Princess…
Suddenly, the shooting star stopped. Celestia blinked. It hadn’t faded out, which meant that the meteor hadn’t dissolved in the atmosphere. Neither had it been stopped by Telekinesis; those who had such reach and ability with it were few and far between; Celestia, being a fairly powerful Full-Spectrum Magus, had access to each of the schools, and her mastery over them was greater than the average unicorn, but even she had no ability to stop something moving so quickly with telekinesis.
Also, the shooting star seemed to be getting… brighter? “What?” muttered Celestia, squinting her eyes.
Then, suddenly, her eyes widened. She jumped back, hiding behind a bench for cover. She may have been the most powerful pony in the world, but she wasn’t invincible. After all, resistance to magic didn’t necessarily mean resistance to physical force.
Less than a second later, the glass on the roof of the window shattered, and a thundering boom sounded throughout the room and likely the palace, given how loud it was. She opened a single eye, and looked around the corner of her bench.
There was a huge crater in the center of the room; glass was scattered all around it, and the ground around it was glowing. Any glass that was there seemed to have melted, and Celestia sighed with relief. Extreme heat, she could handle. She stood up.
Looking at her front hooves, she made sure to avoid any dangers that may have been on the floor. Her eyes scanned the crater’s rim; it wasn’t exactly spherical, but it was definitely a huge carving into the ground.
She continued to approach the crater. Her instincts told her she shouldn’t, but she’d never listened to her instincts often.
What could be in this crater, though? There was no way it was an ordinary meteor; meteors didn't just act like that. It wasn't created with magic either; usually magical objects didn't leave craters. So what could have created the impact?
Her train of thought was cut short when she saw it. At first, Celestia stepped back, her face showing confusion. Then, it quickly morphed into concern. There was a creature within the crater; it seemed to be unconscious. It looked… odd. It had a pair of legs and arms that reminded her of a dragon's, but instead of short, stubby legs that many dragons had, its legs were large and muscled. And then there was the rest of its body.
Its head looked like a pony's, but without a muzzle, instead having a small nose like a Diamond Dogs. In addition, Celestia noticed that it had no external organs aside from its skin. Overall, it looked like the top half of a centaur combined with the bottom half of a monkey, minus the tail.
Except it was made out of metal. She prepared herself. “GUARDS!” she shouted, the Royal Canterlot Voice being used by her for the first time in millennia. She would have this creature tended to, and have it back on its feet soon; she wasn’t stupid, after all, and she knew that even if something came from the sky, there was no need to alienate it.
But she couldn’t help but wonder… what was that creature?
Celestia sat by the odd metal being’s hospital bed, her eyes downcast. Her ears were flat against her skull. This was, as far as she knew, the only creature of its kind in existence, and were it to die, she would feel responsible.
She didn’t know why the creature had come in on such a shooting star, nor did she care. For a few minutes, however, she had entertained the idea that something out there, something more powerful than even Discord, had granted her wish. Then, she discarded it. If it were a wish, there would have been more of a sign of such a thing – more magic, maybe, or a white flash. But there was none of that. This being had a fairly large amount of magic, certainly more than most unicorns – enough that she suspected that it had not used magic in its entire life, rivalling even that of her former student, Sunset Shimmer’s – but if it were the product of a wish, it would have been far more magically adept, perhaps even saturating the air with enough magic to be visible.
There was a problem, though. The ponies of Equestria were scared.
Even as she sat there, Celestia could tell that many of the doctors and nurses examining the patient did not wish to be there, and were only there because she had barged in, carrying the being in her telekinesis and asking for them to help it recover. Knowing other ponies, they would be panicking, too. She didn’t know if it would survive or not. But she hoped.
“Princess.”
The gruff voice startled her out of her reverie. She looked to see the source of it, and a small, pleasant smile came onto her face, although she began to have a sinking feeling. “Captain Hoofstrong,” she said, nodding towards him. “It’s a pleasant surprise to see you here.” The stallion in front of her nodded back in reply.
Hoofstrong was the current captain of the Royal Guard of Equestria. He was large, even for a stallion; his head was almost level with hers, and his golden coat didn’t betray his age. His horn was sharp, filed to a point. He was a finely tuned weapon, his loyalty to Celestia almost unsurpassable.
He was also, Celestia suspected, a blithering racist.
Oh, she had no proof. Except for the fact that he had trained most of his Royal Guards to primarily target Zebras, Griffons, Bisons, and every other species before ponies. She had heard rumours of a small time bank robbery a while back; the robbers were a group of unicorns. When Hoofstrong’s guards had gotten on the scene, they ignored the uniicorns, and instead arrested a Zebra that just happened to be nearby.
Of course, whoever she asked wouldn’t testify to that happening. She had even pulled the princess card a few times, as much as she despised doing so, and they had still denied it. Clearly, Hoofstrong had put in the guardsponies a fear of him greater than her undeserved status had put in everypony else.
“I have a suggestion, Princess,” Hoofstrong began, and Celestia arched an eyebrow. He continued. “I suggest that we bring this creature under arrest-”
“Your suggestion is noted, and ignored,” the princess replied, retaining her smile. Hoofstrong’s eyebrows rose, and he looked like he was about to go onto a tirade, before he took a deep breath, and paused, calming himself. After a few seconds, he stared Celestia in the eyes intensely.
“But Princess, we don’t know whether or not this creature is hostile; we should keep it contained in case it attempts to attack us!” he protested, his voice having a slight edge, but likely not nearly as much of one as if he had remained more openly irate.
Celestia merely stared back at her captain of the guard, once more arching an eyebrow. “And have you considered, perhaps, that if we kept it imprisoned, that would make it think of us as hostile, and cause it to attack us?” she asked rhetorically.
For several seconds, Hoofstrong was silent. His eyes flicked around the room, desperately searching for an answer. “…B-but what if it turns out to be hostile?!” he protested, “What if it’s been pretending to be asleep for this entire time?”
“I doubt that. If it were, it probably would have protested at this point,” Celestia commented. “Now, would it be too much to ask, or may you leave this room?”
Hoofstrong searched for an answer, but not finding one, sighed. His ears dipped back. “…Fine, I’ll leave,” he almost snapped. He turned towards the door, his hooves clopping on the floor, before he turned his head to face Celestia again. “If you do reconsider, your highness, then speak to me again at a later date.” With that, he opened the door with telekinesis, leaving the room, before the door was slammed closed.
Celestia almost slumped into the chair she sat at. Sometimes, he was such a pain in the flank. She honestly wished that there was a better choice for the Captain of the Guard. But Hoofstrong was both the best strategist, and the best Magus within the royal guard. If somepony came along who would replace him, she would sack him in a heartbeat. But until then, she was stuck with him, for better or for worse; all of the other guards were too inflexible.
She turned her attention back to the medical team. It seemed they had figured out what had happened to him. “Doctor?” she said, directing her question at a red-maned mare with pale green skin and a cutie mark of a DNA strand. “Is it going to be alright?”
“Yes, princess,” Doctor Gene Strand, Equestria’s number 1 Xenobiologist, stated with finality. “He is going to be just fine.”
Celestia slumped in relief, a tired smile evident on her face. “Thank goodness…” The creature wasn’t going to die. It would be awful for anything to die within the city of Canterlot, and it would be even worse if it was the representative of a foreign nation.
Then, she looked up Gene. “Wait, did you just refer to it as a male?” she asked, her ear flicking in curiousity.
Gene smiled. “Yes, I did. If you’re wondering why, though, well…” She took a breath, then breathed out. “You’re aware of the physiology of female minotaurs, yes?” At Celestia’s nod, she continued. “Well, you should be aware that the mammaries of a female minotaur, as opposed to being on their belly, are higher up on their chest, which is the reason the females of the species wear clothing regularly.”
“Yes, and that’s important why?” Celestia asked for clarification.
Gene looked down at the creature again, then looked up. “Well, oddly enough, against my expectations of anything xenological… this thing actually has all the traits of an Equestrian mammal.”
Celestia blinked. “An Equestrian… Mammal?” she asked, the gears slowly turning through her brain. Gene nodded.
“Yes, Princess; an Equestrian mammal. It has the mammaries –“ she pointed at the creature’s chest, and the small, circular nibs on it. “And it also has the general appearance of a mammal, given its fingers and toes. Well, except for the fact that it’s made of metal. And its lack of genitals. As for its male status, well, after realising how closely it looked like a minotaur, I cross-referenced its upper body with a minotaur’s, and it’s built more like a male.”
“Speaking of that… How, exactly, does something made of metal that remains living exist?” Celestia asked.
Gene smiled a huge, excited smile. “I have no idea! That’s what’s so brilliant about this!” She took a deep breath. A musical trill was heard in the background, and the phantom noise of a piano playing a C sharp note was heard in the background.
And then she started to sing.
“When I was a young filly,
When I saw the night sky I’d see,
A place where strange creatures could be,
Beyond the skies I saw!
I studied all the things that would
Help me to understand the good
Field of aliens, you should
Understand my hope for more,
So when I heard that I was needed,
By the royal guard, I heeded
Their words; I knew they had seeded
Excitement into my mind
To meet the very first alien
It would help me set a trail in
My field with ponies mailing
To find out what I did find!
So finally I get to help with my true talent’s skill!
Even if I save this I will never get a fill!”
After that, Gene began to breathe heavily. She had been dancing in the little room, and after the song was finished, she was in a pose on her back knees, with the other doctors and nurses the same. Celestia giggled; it was always funny to see a song from one of the ponies.
Gene blushed. “Uhm… S-sorry…” she coughed, her eyes darting around the room. Meanwhile, the other doctors and nurses. “I was just a bit excited.”
“It’s no problem, Doctor. In fact, I found that quite amusing.” The alicorn’s smile grew an inch wider, and Gene’s cheeks flushed even redder. Celestia simply held a hoof to her mouth and giggled again.
It was the only thing that could stop her from cackling like a madmare.
“So, anyway, you were saying something about the creature?”
Gene composed herself, nodding. “Yes, I was. What I was saying is-“
“It’s waking up!” a doctor yelled from beside the being. Celestia and Gene snapped their heads towards the table at the same time as everypony else in the room. The being made a groan, shifting slightly in its sleep.
It was waking up.
Author's Note
So, I made a second chapter. Hopefully, it's to some of your liking.