Empire of the Sun

“Rainbow I swear, if you keep doing that, I'm gonna get a headache,” Applejack said, rolling her eyes. The pegasus kept doing barrel rolls in the air, flying infinitely in a figure eight pattern.

“Pinkie Pie,” Fluttershy was calling, “Stop, you could hurt yourself!”

“Silly Fluttershy,” Pinkie Pie shook her head, “I can't—” suddenly she waved her arms around in panic as she fell straight off of the branch head first. Fluttershy gasped as a rush of wind said Rainbow was swooping in to catch her. She did, but, the two lost balance further and both went crashing into the ground, kicking up dust.

“You two,” Applejack said, trotting over to them, “are made for each other.”

“I'm SO bored,” Dash whined, dusting herself off as she sat up, “why did Princess Celestia ask us to come if she was just gonna leave us in the lobby?”

“Dashie… You're sitting on my face…”Pinkie Pie’s muffled voice informed her.

“How'd that even happen?” Rainbow Dash stood up.

There was a sound of hooves clopping on cobblestone coming from further inside the castle.

The four jumped up and straightened themselves out. For a few seconds, the held their breath, but released it when they noticed Celestia.

She looked terrible. Her mane, usually glittering, was dull. Her wings were hanging limply and her coat had grayed slightly. Her eyes were wide and shaken, even though she looked like she was trying to hide it with a forced smile.

“Princess Celestia!” they exclaimed and raced over to her. Pinkie Pie launched an emergency hug around the Princess’ neck, surprising the other three.

“Pinkie I don't—” Applejack was cut off when she realized Celestia looked more comfortable and wrapped a foreleg around Pinkie.

So, she took her hat off and joined Pinkie Pie, while Fluttershy revealed a bloomed yellow flower and placed it in her mane. Rainbow Dash stood strongly by her side, determined to show her support while the others occupied her in hugs. The Princess said nothing, only embraced their comfort, right in the former lobby of the ruins of her old castle. The four elements noticed that warmth was beginning to return to her body, and her mane started to sparkle and shine again.

When they departed, though Rainbow stayed by her, they looked confused.

“What happened?” Applejack asked, “Are you okay?”

She nodded, “Yes, I wasn't expecting a great experience. I needed to find something out that took a toll on me.”

“Why'd you go in alone?” Fluttershy asked, “We would have helped you!”

Celestia shook her head, “It was for me and me only to do.” Dash had a classic guard pose, sitting tall and still with a straight face and her wings tightly locked to her sides. Celestia extended the wing on her side that Dash was on, and brushed the pegasus closer to her in a wing hug, “I thank you all for complying with my request.”

The rainbow maned mare couldn’t keep her straight face any longer, as she broke her still stiff posture and lovingly hugged her princess around her neck like Pinkie Pie had done earlier.

“Fluttershy, what is this flower?” Celestia asked mildly curious, beginning to walk out of the forest once her and Rainbow let go.

“It's a Sunflower, your Highness,” she answered timidly. Celestia nodded,

“Ah, I knew it looked familiar.”

***

“Spike, calibrate it another negative ten degrees,” Twilight instructed. She took her eye away from the eyepiece as Spike gently turned the wheel. The whole platform rotated very slowly as gears turned underneath. The noise stopped when the platform stopped and once again she looked through the eyepiece, her horn glowing.

“The time is 00:36, the date is February 12th,” she said, levitating a paper and a quill, “We’re looking at an object minus ten degrees latitude from the last.”

Spike was writing also, “Observations?”

“Appears to be an ordinary blue giant.”

“Apparent magnitude?”

“Give or take 1 or 2.”

Spike smirked, “Absolute magnitude?”

“Spike, stop! We're alienating the readers!” she huffed.

“But don't we wanna show off?”

“We’ll have plenty of time to do that later,” she said, looking back at the pages

“Now, let's see how this ‘telereceiver’ magic works,” her horn glowed and stared at the page.

“Scattered they began,

together they fall,

in orderly fashion,

to see it all!”

A flash filled the room for a moment, and died back down again. She put her paper and quill down and watched the contents of the view.

“Spike take everything I say do—”

“I know, we’ve gone over what to do a hundred times already!”

“There’s an image forming…” she said, watching a faint glow appear, “Blue in color, closer to cyan… I see… a blizzard. Mountains; lifeless; frozen wasteland.”

“Are you sure you're not talking about Shining Armor’s study room?”

She glared at him, “Can you not? I'm having extra planetary visions right now.”

“Vision; it's only a still image.”

She stared at him, her irritation showing.

“Fight me.”

She dove back to the eyepiece.

“... that's all I can see. The only other thing is this strange, white thin line in the sky that curves as the sky curves.. not sure what it is, but I'll find out.”

Spike was scribbling frantically, “Um… Twilight?”

“Yes, Spike?”

“You know, we’ve been at this for five hours now.”

“Yes, Spike.”

“For the past few weeks.”

She looked up from her telescope,

“I know, Spike.”

“Shouldn't we get ready for Celestia’s wedding tomorrow?”

“That's tomorrow?!” she yelped.

“Yes, I've been telling you that for the past week.”

She leaped off the platform and her horn supercharged. Quills, scrolls and books suddenly levitated everywhere around the room.

“All that calculating took us two months? This is the very first test!” She began walking quickly out of the observatory with an army of floating papers and quills behind her, “Where did all the time go?”

Spike dodged out of the way as he covered his head,

“So… you’re getting ready now?”

“Yes of course! Now! Where’s my Gala dress? No, wait, where’s the dress Rarity made for me a few weeks ago?”

“Twilight you said you were wearing… never mind, it’s over there,” Spike hopelessly pointed towards her bedroom, “It’s sat in your closet since she made it.” The next hour was spent trying to fit Twilight perfectly in her dress, and perfect, eventually, was right. Her dress was a calm silver blue, lots of flowing fabric glittered with shining stars. Her shoes were a polished silver, making an identical copy of the world it reflected.

“Wow, Twilight,” Spike said in awe, “I dunno how you did it, but you look amazing!”

“That’s not weird to say, right?” she asked, thoughtfully.

“No, why?”

“I don’t want any speculation in the comments section.”

Since Twilight had made herself unreachable for the past… two months, she had guessed by now that she would play no special roles in the ceremony, and would likely just show up. Funny how her former teacher’s wedding would be without Twilight playing a role in it, but, when she thought about it, she more content to just sit and watch, anyway. After all, the last wedding she had taken a part of had landed in an invasion of Canterlot, so she best be ready in the audience, anyway.

After stuffing all of the “telereceiver magic” development in the back of her priorities, she finally caught a grip to be fully prepared for the wedding tomorrow. It was going to be possibly the best day ever!

***

Celestia comfortably hugged Sirius in front of her bedroom, giggling.

“Tomorrow’s finally the day,” she said. Sirius nodded excitedly in agreement,

“I know! I’m so excited; I just hope somepony doesn’t try to ruin it,” he rolled his eyes, catching a smile on his face.

“Oh, we can handle them,” she responded dismissively, “That’s why we have that fake ceremony planned first.” They had planned ahead, keeping in mind Shining Armor’s wedding. It was extremely convenient that Chrysalis had threatened again, because Celestia knew very well what she was up against. She had made absolutely no moves thus far, giving her no choice but to try something tomorrow.

“Right,” he said, “I know, but, I still don’t want anything to go wrong.”

She laughed, “Oh, you’re so funny. In any case, I bid you farewell, Sir Sirius A.”

He bowed his head, “Of course my Princess Celestia, until tomorrow.”

They departed, and Celestia had flopped on her bed once again. Equestria had mixed reactions to her announcing they were getting married. To her surprise, those that were causing the most trouble seemed to die down instead of get more aggravated, but on the flip side, those supporting her had backed down a little, clearly not expecting her to go that far. Regardless, lots of ponies were expected to show up at the wedding. The ceremony was limited to invite only, but they were having a part open to the public later on in the day.

Satisfied, she closed her eyes as sleep rushed on her.

Finally, she was with her one true Love.