Defining Features

by Ice Star

Rating: teen
Tags: Princess Celestia, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Princess Luna, Drama, Philomena
Length: 4519

At long last, the Two Sisters have returned to what was once their home. They have some exploring to do. In doing so, how shall the gulf between them grow?

At long last, the Two Sisters have returned to what was once their home. They have some exploring to do. In doing so, how shall the gulf between them grow?

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Published 2016-05-13 01:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2023-07-15 22:20:29 UTC

Chapter 1: (Do Not) Become

Luna:

There it was. Over a thousand years ago Celestia and I left this castle, which was so well hidden in the Everfree Forest. This was our birthplace, and where the four of us were last together as a family before our parents left. Perhaps my ambitions to find them, if you can call them such, have faded under the misery we have endured at the hooves of ponykind, but they are not gone like Celestia's. She has let that be known for years, and sometimes she said as much when she was at her most furious with me. It takes much to divide such a bond that she and I had, and one of the things that did so was when she confessed that she had given up finding our family in the form of a screeching fight that took place in an old stone castle lodged in an abandoned corner of the world. One that was frozen over by windigos, where living unicorns no longer tread, and all that remained were the frozen dead and their ghosts.

There were no apologies, no amends. She acted like every single fight was just something that we were meant to scrape ourselves up from and then move on afterward.

Nothing like an apology has ever been uttered by her. I do not even know why.

The castle had come into sight after ducking under the bough of a tree heavily anchored under curtains of ivy. After that, we finally stood on our own doorstep. It was no longer a place within my own conscious or the stuff of memories with an untouchable existence, as here it was right in front of me. I could see the dust gathered in small places and other little signs that this place had trotted through time too.

In front of us.

I swallowed hard but couldn't contain how positively bittersweet everything was inside and burst into sobs while my heart lurched and ached. Through my tears, I glimpsed my sister's conflicted face, a suppressed foil to my outburst, albeit an understandable one. I wanted to think that she still found something of our true home to love, and that she remembered we were not of the ponies. When we left she and I were naught but little fillies who cast but scraps of shadows despite actually being hundreds of years old. Now, here we both were already over one thousand years of age, but in mortal years we were adults of twenty-four and seventeen, respectively. Our kind always aged peculiarly and I did my best to keep track of our ages as they really were, not how ponies saw them.

Our castle was wrought of stone in many hues of light gray and sculpted delicately. It seemed to flow up from the ground like an implement of nature itself, its unlit windows sleepily shined with raindrops from the recent showers as it rose above the forest, its spires reaching for the clouds.

Yet our life memories do not lie here, I thought, for we truly grew up among the world itself with mountains as our mothers, the forests as our fathers, and the varying landscapes as our friends and teachers. We always had each other, at least until we went to the Frozen North.

And here we return as the Last Princesses...

...I have no other family left to follow.

Celestia, expression unreadable sets one unadorned hoof across the threshold of the silver doors. They were now tarnished with age, as all their spells fell into disrepair with no Alicorns present to manage their upkeep.

My heartbeat quickened as my sobbing gradually ceased as I watched Celestia's exaggerated reluctance as she took this step. Her colorful mane and tail were like cascading waterfalls shimmering with that hesitation. Then, suddenly her prolonged movement ceased and her impatient magenta gaze locked into my face which was still streaked with tears.

"Come in," she said flatly. I was almost beginning to believe that Philomena the Phoenix, who had been astride my sister's back before parting with us at the forest's entrance was the only source of brightness about Celestia anymore. At least Phillie understood the enormity of this occasion and wanted to leave it to us.

I followed her inside and through the hallways and passages as she led us nowhere in particular. Our castle was relatively intact but the passages Celestia seemed to want to choose were layered with tapestries of cobwebs which she burned mercilessly.

It would seem I truly am the only one here for sentimental reasons, I mused silently as we continued on even faster, my vision blurry with the remains of our deserted home. Sometimes, they were thrown back in my face so carelessly.

I forget what exactly happened next because only two things remain undisputed in my mind: first, the floor gave out below Celestia and she fell, screaming in shock, to the rooms below. Before I could properly react the ceiling where I was standing loosened and rained down in moderate chunks. One that was smaller than a hoof hit me in the head as I was about to call out to her...

Next, I know that I fell on top of her, utterly dizzy, and then the floor beneath us also gave away.

After that memories surrounding the specifics of some of the next occurrences did not come, only their foggy blankness reflected back at me. I would not talk because my head hurt too much, even though I felt no blood and the spots of light peeking through the debris above stung my eyes. I looked around at the forsaken and crumbly wing we had ended up in this time in order to busy myself and look for a way out.

It was not a room I remembered very well and the only sign of life was the small kitten with big blue eyes and a starry coat like that of the Ursas my father consorted with. I guess not all of the cats deserted the castle after we left. Some must have continued to live here. The kitten looked at Celestia and me briefly before mewing once and scampering off in another direction.

Tia stared in the direction where it came from with a look I couldn't quite decipher in her eyes. "Follow me," she murmured brusquely.

I did without any objections, the dim halls blending together for who knows how long until all I felt was dizziness. I was not in any state to object. With how my head felt, I would not be able to safely teleport out of this mess.

Soon after getting entangled in many a cobweb to the point where we were probably unrecognizable as equines, my sister and I came to an old wooden door already half-decayed and conquered by various molds. Celestia stretched out a hoof to touch it before its remaining half crumbled to slimy chips that were not worth mending. They upset my stomach a bit to think about, though perhaps that was due to my injured state.

Once we stepped inside the pitch black my head throbbed harder and the stagnant air caused me to sway with nausea. The unaware Celestia began to comb through her sparkling mane with a forehoof. It still had yet to regrow past her withers, this was from when she cut it during part of her 'act' as 'Solara' — the name that she had been given as an Arcane Student. Or at least that was how she had phrased it, I always suspected that there was some other reasoning. After all, she expected me to believe that how she behaved then was all an act as well, even though I know her... and I still try to. I still stay even though you might not deserve it.

I stay because you are all I have left and I know of nowhere else to go.

A moment later my knees buckled and my vision went dark while my throbbing head felt like fire, until I felt the pain go away and opened my eyes to see Celestia standing over me. She was muttering about how there was not any cat in the hallway and that I was talking nonsense, and perhaps she was concerned, but it was too dark for me to tell. There was also another part I don't think she wanted me to hear: she did not have renovations or remodeling in mind but total rebuilding.

...She hates this place?! A place we have fought so hard for! A place we always longed to return! The place that was best to us.

I didn't let my knowledge show, which would have been easy, even without the cover of darkness.

I was not strewn with as many cobwebs as before and my head finally felt better but my heart did not.

"Careful," she scolded, as she helped me up so I would not slip into the pool of vomit almost directly in front of me. There was no need to ask where it came from, though I did not remember throwing up.

"Come see what I found," she whisper-ordered me when it became obvious that I would not fall down right away. She then proceeded to steer me over to a radiant corner of the room that definitely I didn't see when we came in. Perhaps she moved me to a different room?

There were two large mirrors that seemed to sprout out of the deteriorating stone walls, but unlike them, the mirrors were clear, pristine, and undistorted. They almost looked new compared to the rest of the decaying atmosphere.

The light however came from the pile of brand-new crowns, collars, and shoes made out of pale gold and studded with violet gems in their centers. All were a matching set with the exception of a more queenly-looking headpiece and its companion shoes and collar who were enthroned on top of their brethren.

I gasped, amazed at the craftsmanship that was beyond the work of any mortal, of anypony. When I blinked a moment later Celestia was right next to her new treasure heap and plopped one of the crowns on her head watching with a smile as it automatically adjusted slightly to fit her a bit better. As a filly, she dreamed of crowns like this.

I cannot say I shared that dream.

Without looking away from her reflection she waved me away toward the other mirror which I had not thoroughly inspected yet.

"Go try out yours, Luna."

"What?" I said looking over to where she waved only to see a large clean-cut cube of opaque pale silver with a smooth appearance somewhere between crystalline and metallic. That cube gleamed with a mysterious prismatic sheen. She did not say anymore, and as confused as I was, I trotted over anyway only to find that this cube of what I presumed to be metal came up to my chest.

What was it? I wondered with another blink.

Cautiously, I began to run a hoof across the cool surface only to find my hoof was stuck fast. I tugged once in an attempt to detach it and then tried a spell but to no avail. Then I noticed that Celestia wasn't worried. A pile of tiaras and such does not just appear like that...and I know she hadn't summoned it in the time I collapsed because she had been helping me. Nervous and confused, I watched as the foreign substance tugged at my hoof before beaming with a bright light which caused me to wince and shut my still-sore eyes.

'This is completely normal,' is what I tried to recite in my head, although it was probably much closer to 'Ow, my eyes!'

My eyes aside, it soon occurred to me that whatever magic was in effect was reading me. It was inside me, my dreams and my fears like a fish might swim against the current of an unfamiliar creek. After a minute of holding my breath it seemed to dissipate, and in one whistling exhale I opened my eyes to see what curiosities lay before me.

I gasped in wonder for in front of me were gleaming indigo fragments of a cloudless night sky in the form of dozens of beautiful little crowns of divine craftsmanship and lying amongst them were glittering little ice stars in the guise of the most fragile-looking shoes. Scattered throughout the pile of treasures already before me were inky-hued collars, the center of each emblazoned with the rare occurrence: a crescent moon whiter than snow.

Like Celestia's pile mine had a set that was different from the rest: a golden crescent moon atop a gilded mountain with swirling purple clouds and its shoes and collar.

I plucked this ornate crown up with my magic and moved it so it rested on my head in my long and sometimes unruly mane that is a similar color to the 'plainer' crowns. The mirror shows my apprehension of what is to come in such detail it almost startles me.

At long last I see my mane ripple slightly, the mark of a maturing goddess.

Of a princess...

In all my life I never thought of myself as Princess Luna. It was simply something I was born with, like the color of my eyes, and thus it meant little to me.

I see the dust of rubble and a few flecks of blood caught in my mane. The crown feels out of place on my head.

My eyes are so wide and recently it feels like I have been forced to choose between two worlds: the one that is and the one other ponies insist is important where court parties are the only obligation. That is not what it is to be a leader, why doesn't Celestia know this?

I am Luna, the goddess. I am Luna of the Night, Luna of the Everfree. I am Luna the once-cheeky filly, the wise, the blunt, the dreamer, and the adventurer.

I did not dream of this.

I doubt that I will ever be what they call a princess: one who smiles and waves and not much more. Or, alternatively, one whose imperious desires are in touch with the ill will of the collective herd-mind a nation fashions. That will not be anything that I let myself become. In their corner of the glass pane, I note Celestia's gaze. It says the same thing although with much more intensity...

Author's Note

[Revised for print 7/15/2023]

This was originally a flashback from Favorable Alignment - one of the earlier hand-written drafts, that is - that had to be cut from the final version. I didn't want to lose it, so I turned into a one-shot.

Chapter 2: The Crown (Atop Your Head)

Celestia:

I do not believe that Luna is fit to rule. Thankfully, I also have no reason to suspect that my sister may know this. This is not because I have some scheme against her, as I am as good as I can be in the words of ponies. That kind of discussion would be embarrassing, at the very least. Most of the things that Luna does are a few steps short of a social scandal, and she really has no right to blame me for being mortified by her conduct or the way that she is spoken about by others. Today, her offense is one against the good and noble concept of the decorum which all ponies must be subjected to.

Luna has chosen to wear the clothing of a stallion. More than that, she has chosen to be seen in public in such attire, no less! She sits across from me, sullen and sulking as the Triarchy’s guards pull our carriage along. The bumps in this dirt road are numerous, but we are lucky that after days we have finally found a path. This young nation of Equestria has little in the way of roads, and what few there are come in the form of worn dirt paths in the earth pony tradition. These, of course, are the major highways of the land.

The foothills immediately west of the lonesome Everfree where Luna and I dwell alone in our castle is hardly that welcome of a sight. While the land is not a rare feral zone like the forest, so filled with ugly, wild things and devoid of anything fit for the aesthetics of civilized creatures, it is unkind and overgrown. Eerie fog lingers too long on a muggy day like this, and has provoked more than a few shudders from me. Mud merges with what we have for a road, with only the imprints of numerous hooves to keep it at bay. The moors are overgrown, and in desperate need of a stone road like those made from by the unicorns to cut across the land instead of just waiting for us when Luna and I reach the start of the range Canterhorn Mountain is a part of. Pegasi and earth ponies are reluctant to traverse land so close to the borders of the Everfree Forest to quell the spirit of this place and put nature where it belongs. I do not blame my little ponies for reacting with such fright, for I have heard the stories told in this part of our young kingdom. Timberwolves have slain travelers by dusk, and those few who have dared request I grant them plots of land in this part of the country thinking they can make it find their humble farms demolished by stray wild weather and other taints of the dreadful magical stronghold where I reside. It is the most vital natural defense this nation could ever have against further inter-tribal war of the races and the southern kingdoms, should they wish to discard all diplomacy and potentially abduct the keepers of the sun and moon.

Perhaps the powers of the Everfree Forest have been enough to drive my sister mad, and that is what drives her to spit upon the blessed state of harmony that is the root of all of our norms. I give her a discreet, disproving sideways glance. Her mane is a bit long for a stallion, but too short for any mare of her station, and both it and her coat have begun to darken. Her thick mane has begun to ripple with the onset of her divinity. Long ago, we claimed our gold-worlds in the frozen north where we found the tribes. I had already been starting to have my mane sparkle and the like, even though I was barely an adolescent and sulky Luna is at the end of it. There is a nagging memory from some time long before, one I should bury rather than touch, that says delayed maturity in proportion to adolescence is a sign of great power amongst our kind. But I bury it to focus on the dark suit she wears, with its ruffled ascot tie, and how big it is on her legs. All of it is cut for a stallion, including the cape she has moodily pulled over her.

She has said nothing to me, and this is not uncommon. I cannot tell why. I cannot get her silence to break and yield anything but disinterest. It sickens me as much as it lingers upon her like a sickness. She will not even converse with our private guards that draw this cart, and they are some rather lovely studs, if I do say so myself. Her eyes are drawn to the land that must be settled, yet she has no want to settle it. My eyes have always been drawn to friends among well-dressed mares and all the ardor a fine stud ought to be associated with. I have worked so hard to get us to where we go tonight: a summit with dear Platinum, Puddinghead, and Hurricane. The whole Triarchy and their three servants have thrown a ball and we narrowly did not get invited and Platinum explicitly cited Luna in the letters as to why. Only my good graces were enough to kindly remind her of our importance... yes 'our' importance. I hoped that if I made Luna sound important too, and got her tickers as well, she would finally be drawn out of her shell and thank me for this.

Instead, I sit here with my expertly sown petticoats in all the palest pastels of spring trying not to sigh. To refrain from doing so is easy for me now, like choking back words. I have enchanted ribbons in orange and gold so that they might contain the way I have netted my mane; this way, none shall see it spill out and how its movements and very nature mark me as apart from them. I have tried to offset the offensive shine with strings of pearls. I know it is odd for me to wear them, for I am not a virgin and my consumption of a good, single stallion at these gatherings is well-known, but at least I merely sample them. Puddinghead is up there in age and has crossed into promiscuity, and if she were anypony else I would not give her the kindness I do. Luna looks out at the lonely land, and I look for something to relieve it. Fair Philomena is not enough of a friend; nopony will live with us. I can find no stallion I can be honest to without being sickened, and yet playing with them as I wish to be seen, as they wish to see me, and then sleeping with them has not sated what I thought it would in me. I need this world, I need this nation of young Equestria to see me, and I need my favors to be stacked well so that one day it might not be a triarchy, but my own.

I have packed Pilomena in a cage strapped to the top of our coach with the rest of my dresses. Luna brought so little luggage. I cannot understand why. When the wine, dining, and trysts are over, the politics may begin. Luna's utter disinterest in the third will certainly limit her usefulness in politics, but I have tried to tout us to the crowd as the two god-sisters, as much as I hate it. As much as I wish to be heir and the spare that is Luna to find her own life. The topic of this summit is the continued spread of the buffalo menace and she has had the most abhorrent things to say about the ways they treat our pony settlers and attempts to create civilized villagers. I have lent my peacekeeping skills to the summit because they have not been forgotten. My aid in the defeat of Tirek is still something that ponies speak of. My status as an Arcane Student and my work with the mares of the Unicorn Court and on the stallions with that I favored there are well-remembered. Everypony alive knows that I have been essential in the reason Equestria exists: I was the one who led the migration southward when it was announced that Clover the Clever and the two other servants found land. Oh, I suppose Luna was there too.

I say this not for my own pride, as that would be a most disgusting thing. Pride is the greatest rot within a pony. I say this because I must milk these heroics for all that they are worth to keep being relevant to the Triarchy who are content to let it be their schemes that run this land and reluctant to let go of every old way of corruption. They would let my sister and I go as unknowns instead of as the Ladies of the Everfree.

My crowns are ornamental now, but I am giving up my life for the good of Equestria that need not the unified tribes to run this nation less than perfectly. I have the idea of a land that will shine like the sun.

Luna is somepony you forget wears a crown at all.

Chapter 3: That (Which) You Wear

Philomena:

I watch a hasty meeting from afar, where the sound drifts upward. The stone palace of the triarchy is hardly a palace at all. Instead, it is a stone Forte where councils are had. My friend has such a lovelier, more ancient castle in a forest filled with more mysteries than even I carry. Neither pony nor Alicorn will whisper of how Platinum died. Her funeral was closed-coffin and so shortly after Clover the Clever's. I was made to watch those from outside the window by a mare my friend cares little for. A mare with dark purple eyes that laugh even though she hoarded food in times of famine, a mare whose rose-pink mane has long since gone gray, and whose faded peacy coat conceals unshorn fetlocks and brown hooves. You can barely see her hooves under her, for she has swelled in size. Chancellor Puddinghead was chubby in times of starvation, and now she has become fat in old age.

I have learned that she was sick with dysentery and cannot attend. I laughed, knowing that gave me an excellent place to perch at any event. Puddinghead is like most earth ponies from the Tribal Era, wary of anything magical and barely willing to accept a unicorn's horn. The earth ponies of the Old World are probably crying in Paradise knowing how their kind have abandoned magic and are now a race that knows not the depths of their own abilities and ignorance alike. Before the Collapse, there were earth ponies who used to become demigods. Now they reap the corruption of democracy. Shame! Shame!

Illness like that is often fatal in somepony of Puddinghead's age. Without Puddinghead, only the ailing ex-Commander Hurricane and Private Pansy are left to host the event. How silly they are to do such a thing when there is an outbreak of feather flu, something extra contagious and extra deadly at their ages. It's like ponies don't know how to get sick anymore and are like this on purpose. Burning herbs and teas will do nothing. Leeches aren't medicine. Yet, they gather with my friend and dear Luna as if they have room to bargain. My Celestia who wears her crown though she does not rule just yet, and Luna who wears her bat-cloak that I cannot see under.

I hear how Hurricane and Pansy argue that the cotton candy cloud found by one of the settlements after Platinum's suspicious death means nothing. They really believe that nothing is coming.

Luna's long gaps of silence are harder to unravel, her magical knowledge certainly goes unappreciated as she explains how no pony could do this and what might need to be done. Seeing Celestia counter-argue with a dying regime that actions must be taken to protect ponies shows me how much of the crown she has become.