The sun slowly sank below the horizon, and Canterlot was once more dark, save for the flickering light illumitated by a stray candle or two from the resturaunts. There was one room in the castle that sunlight did continue to blaze unopposed however, for just as there was one room of the castle that remained unlit for all eternity, there was a room that never failed to shine. Inside this room, the rays of the sun beat harshly into the faded parchment of thousands of small scrolls and letters scattered around the floor with no order conceived for the chaos of their placement, their contents baked under the intense heat, and the ink that lined it’s surface oozed with an intolerable smell, no doubt the ink had been permanently fused with the air and walls, for the entire room often smelled like the inside of a printing press.While the scrolls might have been hazardously scattered around the room now, it seemed at one point they might have been one, or perhaps just two piles. At some point, the piles were knocked over, and now many of the scrolls had been trampled on, shredded, or otherwise neglected. With the exception of 20 scrolls, sitting on a small table hidden in the corner of the room, there was not a single scroll that was not in an atrociously horrid state of disrepair. Celestia was certain that Twilight would have been shocked to hear that she had never really bothered to organize, or take care of the letters Twilight Sparkle had sent her. She actually giggled when she tried to think of the look her student would have on her face, if she was to hear that most of the letters lasted no more than a week before being reduced to mere shreds of paper, shreds that Celestia felt fit to traipse across at a moments notice, shreds not even fit to line Philomena’s cage, that only served the purpose of concealing a floor that, were it visible, was so dirty and unkempt that it would give any of the cleaning ponies nightmares that would last for weeks!
Not a single living pony, except Celestia... and possibly Luna, was even certain what color the floor actually was any more. This room was off limits to anypony except for Celestia herself, no pony had visited this chamber of eternal light in more then 200 years, the point at which the bar of entry was first decreed. Soon after she had attained such privacy, she had started to collect newspaper articles. The articles from Equestria Daily now plastered every inch like a rather ramshackle wallpaper similar in appearance to that of paper mache. The articles had dates stretching back more than 150 years, and it was clear Celestia was still adding more articles to the wall even today, as the most recent article was no more than a month old.. Titles such as “Tragic accident kills 6 pegasi at the Gala” and “The Equestrian Museum of History robbed!” filled most of the pages, but the pictures in the articles had other pictures glued over them, of far more graphic details of the events then even the most avid of historians could ever gain access to. The ceiling was mirrored, and looking up at it would only show oneself standing inside the middle of a broken and emotionally corrupt room.
The handle to the door rattled, then turned, and after a bit of shoving, the sun princess had finally shoved the door far enough open to squeeze through the opening. She had a smile on her face, but as she entered the room it melted away, and contempt could be seen seething from her expression. If anypony could have seen her then, they would be surprised that it could have possibly been their benevolent and happy ruler. Safe in the confines of her own room, she was capable of expressing her true feelings though. She relished this time alone. Celestia unfurled her wings, and a scroll that had been tucked underneath the left one tumbled to the floor, where she would probably never see it again. Celestia rarely read any of Twilight's messages more then once before they joined the others on the floor.
While Celestia might never see it again, the scroll was still in plain site if anypony else had been looking for it, and as it unfurled and came to a rest along with all the other writings, its contents were displayed to anypony that might be around to read it. Just like most of the other letters, it was from Twilight Sparkle. Celestia had received this one less then 20 minutes ago.
Dear Celestia,
I think I must have read your letter incorrectly.
I was certain that when you said that ponyville
was going to have a royal visit, that you must
have been talking of yourself. Of course, now that
I consider it, Luna is royalty, and I guess it is
better to not to make such an assumptions I
was wondering if everything was alright with
with Luna. She seems to be a bit distracted
and I guess I was just wondering if anything
might have happened at canterlot. Can I help
you? I know I have no place in royal affairs,
but if there is anything I might be able to do
in order to make Luna feel more at home, I
would of course like to know.
Right now, we are preparing a wonderful party
for her, and everypony is doing their best to make
her feel at home. With such short notice, I didn’t
have time to inform anypony that we were going
to have company, and so were all a bit behind on
this. Of course I think you might be a bit behind
on your own preparations though, Luna
mentioned earlier that you have not prepared her
an abode to sleep at tonight. If we don’t receive
word on where you intend for her to sleep before
the end of the night, I suppose I will have to set
her up for a slumberparty at the Library with me.
One last question, is Luna down here to make
friends, or is something wrong down here that
needed tending to?
Your Faithful Student
Twilight Sparkle
Moments like this one reminded Celestia of exactly why she kept direct contact with others to a minimum. Everypony assumed she was a friend, and that nothing they said could make her mad. Even if they didn’t mean to, the questions they could have the audacity to ask were maddening... “I think you might be a bit behind on your own preparations “, and “I know I have no place in royal affairs, but”... The things she would put up with from people, her own pupil was willing to take such a interrogative tone against her?
Celestia waded through the sea of shredded paper, pushing her way to the bed. This bed was probably the only well kept object in her entire room. It was in pristine shape, and was fabled to be the softest object in all of Equestria, if not the entire world. Yet she didn’t care how soft it was right now, what she needed was the solitary confinement the room was worth. It was hard for her to believe she might ever be in prison, but it hadn’t been until 200 years ago that she realized that is exactly what she had created for herself. This 32x32 yard space was all Celestia had now. Occasionally, she might get some time alone in other places, but here, and only here, was she free to plot, to think, and to live her life as she wished.
The thought of how Luna had gotten the better of her was so maddening, what was 1000 years on the moon compared to an eternity of living in the shadows? She hadn’t been on the bed for more then 5 minutes, but she knew had to do it this time. Her horn flashed, and sparked, and before long the foundations of the room shook with a ferocity greater then any earth-shakes Equestria had ever faced in the past. Before long an unnatural wind howled through the room, and scrolls, newspapers, sheets, and anything else that wasn’t bolted down started to wiz through the air in an artificial tornado. It didn’t take long for the sparks flying from her horn to catch on of the pieces of paper, and with a sudden, and spontaneous flicker, the tornado burst into a green and purple blaze.
In less then 10 minutes, the tornado was more ash then paper, and it wasn’t until then that Celestia snapped her wings into a taught position, that the sun phased out, and the winds died forever. Whatever remained of the scrolls and papers floated in the air, suspended outside the grasps of gravity, and the flames, clinging to the edges of the larger scraps, continued to eat at their source of fuel, giving off the only source of light. With a exasperated sigh, Celestia dropped her wings and let the remnants of the parchment flutter to the ground. It was probably for the better that they were gone now. Sometimes, you just need to cut out the fat, and nothing was better for completing that job, then going insane and letting your rage get the better of you. She felt a lot better now. Maybe she should stop telling people to let go of their hate, it seemed to be pretty productive whenever it got the better of her.
About then, Philomena swooped down from the chandelier. Celestia had actually forgotten about her pet, but the Phoenix seemed to show up whenever she was frustrated, Philomena was a very loyal bird, Celestia was happy to have found him. He took a large, arched path around the edge of the room, before finally perching on Celestia’s left shoulder, preening Celestia’s wing feathers in an attempt to calm her down, and cheer her up. Like all phoenixes, Philomena glowed in the dark... Celestia found herself transfixed with a mural that was on her wall, Philomena had swooped right past a large, wall sized mural of Celestia and Luna when they were little fillies. Luna was laying on top of Celestia with one of her hoofs stuck partially in Celestia’s nose, they were both smiling, laughing, and... well sickeningly enough, they were getting along.
“Oh, Philomena, look what you did now! I could have gone 2 or 3 days before I would have noticed that...you silly bird...” Celestia smiled, and playfully bashed the bird on top of its head, harder then she probably should have, but for some reason Celestia found that she had stopped worrying about it. I mean, yeah... she knew Philomena could feel pain, but the bird had infinite lives, so she was a little... okay, FAR rougher with it then she probably should be, she’d probably cost Philomena it’s life a few times even, but since Philomena loved Celestia unconditionally, she guessed the bird forgave her for her treatment. Her feathers had never been in neater shape, or more attended to, and Philomena made much better company than Luna ever had.
Luna Luna Luna...
The letters, that reminded her of the letters. Everything Twilight had ever sent the princess was burned and the ashes lay at her feet. There was some good stuff in there... There was a reason Twilight Sparkle was her disciple after all... Of course, Twilight being her diciple is why she had sent Luna to Ponyville. It was imperative that she made certain she wrote a full reply to Twilight Sparkle about that last letter, as it would be the most important one of her entire life. But her order of business tonight, had nothing to do with getting Luna a place to sleep.
My Faithful Student,
Thank you for contacting me about Luna, and
this situation. Unfortunately I can’t interfere
with Luna’s trip. This is actually a very impor-
tant matter to attend to, and so I can’t give
any outside aid to her. I would like to request
that you do not give her any aid either. This
is her journey, and she must handle it in her
own special way.
I would like to request you keep your eye on
Luna for me. I’m certain she will be alright,
but there might still be something to worry
about, and I couldn’t live with myself if some-
thing bad happened again. This is why I ask
you, my faithful student, to watch her and make
sure she doesn’t hurt anypony. I would just like
to make sure you know how important this job is.
I’ll know the signs if anything is going wrong,,
I’ll take care of it when that happens.
You have been a very faithful student, and I’d
really like it if you continued to send me reports
on what you have learned of the magic of friend-
ship. I need you to be very cautious of Luna though,
even if she seems friendly, it is safest that you avoid
becoming too close to her. You are my greatest joy
in the last 1000 years, and I never want you to forget
that.
As my final request, I need you to not share any of the
contents of this letter with anypony in Ponyville. This
is in between you and me, as my Student, and as your
Teacher.
With sincere care
Celestia
Celestia needed to write another letter tonight, this time for Nightmare, but that could wait a bit longer. In fact the closer it was to nightfall, the better for this letter. So she tucked the letter underneath her wing, and giving an affectionate nuzzle to Philomena, pushed open the door to her room. The door swung wide open, and after she went through its doorway, she took a glance back at her room. Her earlier tantrum had reduced the room to a state one might consider condemned, and a fine layer of soot covered everything, excluding that one wall with the mural. Every single letter Twilight had ever given her, every report on friendship, were all gone, and Celestia supposed that was alright. She knew, better then anypony that the reports didn’t really mean anything after they were written, just as the articles, and tragedies, regardless of how huge, in the end hadn’t really been anything in the reality of how the world worked. Only one scrap of paper with any writing on it had survived. Even though it lay in the corner on the far side of the room, with her expert eyesight Celestia could read it perfectly... “Your faithful Student”
That was, in this case...the most important thing in the entire world. While Twilight Sparkle was on her side, the Elements of Harmony would reside in her hooves, so long as this was true, anything that Luna might do could do, would be undone. This next letter would the most important matter she had attended to in over 1000 years.
As she trotted off, she stalled, this was a perfect moment to get her room cleaned. Seeing the opportunity, she stopped one of her guards. She smiled, then in a polite, but demanding tone said, “Hello Butch, I’d like you to arrange for a single maid to come clean my room today. I want it done before nightfall.”
The guard glanced over her shoulder, and his mouth fell ajar, quickly gathering himself, he said, “Dearest princess, surely you mean a team of maids? One person surely can’t do that all alone.”
Celestia smiled, but then shook her head in a fervent no, “No, just one, and yes, before nightfall. They will figure it out.” She beamed a very bright smile, and it shined almost like the sun, and before the guard could react, she trotted, or somewhat skipped down the hall.Celestia would soon send off a letter to Luna declaring her the leader of Equestria, and before the sun rose again, she would be out of the country, and on to happier things. She couldn’t imagine why she hadn’t done this sooner.
