Celestia was tense. Her shoulders were stiff and her smile wasn’t entirely sincere. Still, she tried to stretch the believability of her smile as Twilight glanced over at her, not that it worked. The younger girl’s own smile faded slightly. She carefully placed the freshly unwrapped record onto the record player. Leaving the needle to the side, she turned to face Celesita again. “I know Cadance is normally the one who brings you new music to listen to, but Rainbow Dash was playing this song the other day, and I knew you would like to hear it.” Her brows furrowed, pensive, as she ruffled her wings. “At least, I think you’ll appreciate it.”
Without fanfare, Twilight lifted the needle in her magic and placed it on the record. The music started slowly, the guitar sounding pleasant enough to Celestia. She shifted when she noticed that Twilight was watching her intently. While Twilight did often want her approval, the expression on her face seemed worried, as if she were just realizing how this could go wrong. Celestia’s ears twitched when the lyrics started. “Oh, I know this band. The one with the Griffin lead singer, is it not? Cadance adores them. She’s been trying to push a record onto me for weeks now.”
Twilight’s eyebrows raised. “I can only guess why, Princess.” She ruffled her wings again, swallowing. “Still, it’s important that you listen to all of the lyrics.” The needle was surrounded in a soft magenta glow as Twilight restarted the song. The music started again, and this time Celesita listened intently. As she listened, everything else seemed to fade away. She no longer felt Twilight’s gaze or even the material of the seat she was perched upon.
The singer was describing her. Her millennium of self-made solitude. As the chorus came in, she felt her breathing speed up. How could this pony, no, this Griffin, think to know how she had felt during her reign of solitude? How could she begin to think she could even conceive half of the pain she had felt? She had left Luna, isolated her in such a way that by the time she realized anything had been wrong, the Nightmare had a firm hold of her.
Locking Luna away had been the only choice she had. She didn’t want to spend so long without her sister. She had tried her best to keep her sister relevant. Ponies refused to separate Luna from Nightmare Moon. They hadn’t understood that monster hadn’t been her sister. Of course she had done the right thing. The Nightmare had needed to be stopped. She couldn’t let her little ponies suffer. It was then she had decided she would never let harm come to her little ponies, damned be the consequences.
She flinched as she felt a hoof touch her leg, looking up to see a blurry Twilight Sparkle. The girl was biting her lip, looking as if she regretted ever suggesting she listen to the song. “I’m sorry, Princess. I’ll stop it now.” Though Twilight was directly next to her, it took Celestia a moment to understand the words. There was a short buzz as the needle left the record, Twilight never moving her comforting hoof. “I thought you would appreciate that ponies were thinking about the time you spent alone, for all those years.”
Celestia blinked. Then she blinked again, wiping the tears away with a wing. “My sister’s departure was my fault. I was alone because I chose it. The Nightmare had taken over my sister. The lyrics are not accurate. I- I buried Luna in history and myth, so that the Nightmare wouldn’t be remembered.” She swallowed.
Twilight sat for a moment, not speaking, which Celestia was grateful for. She needed time to gather herself again. Twilight didn’t give her much silence, though. “Luna agrees that was the least harsh option you could have chosen. She doesn’t feel like it was punishment enough for what she did.”
Twilight shrank back slightly under her mentors glare. “The Nightmare was not Luna. It overtook her, and the elements of harmony destroyed it when you and your friends blasted her with it. Luna would never have tried to hurt our little ponies.” Celestia shifted, suddenly impatient to be away from her most favorite student. She stood, turning to leave the private chamber.
“You’re wrong.”
Celestia stopped, wings flaring slightly. She turned and looked back at Twilight, barely keeping her expression nutral in her current emotional state. Twilight sat, her expression a reflection of the one Celestia wore. After a small stretch of silence, she raised her eyebrows.
“I am not wrong, Twilight Sparkle.” Celestia breathed in slowly, purposefully, through her nose. “The Nightmare was a monster. Luna was a victim, just as Cadance was a victim of Queen Chrysalis.”
Twilight stood and walked over to the Princess. Celestia did not bend down, or even tilt her head, to give her faithless student a sense of equality. Twilight looked up, as directly into Celestia’s eyes as she could. “You are wrong, Princess. Luna is Nightmare Moon. Nightmare Moon is Luna. It’s something she struggles with every day. The elements reduced her power for a time. She still…” Twilight paused, taking a moment to gather her thoughts. Shaking her head, she looked down. “Luna has never claimed that she was some hapless bystander that Nightmare Moon happened upon. She takes full responsibility. She punishes herself for it.”
Celestia’s eyes widened. “She what?” Twilight didn’t answer. She watched as Celestia processed all of the information, her ears slowly falling to the sides of her head. “Oh, Lulu,” she said, mostly to herself.
Twilight stood again, giving Celestia a little push. “The two of you really should talk about this, Princess.”
Celestia nodded, looking down at the younger princess, who was turning blurry again. She took a step forward, lowering her head and wrapping her wings around Twilight, giving her a soft nuzzle. “I will, my favorite, most faithful student. I will.”
