The Night Before Nightmare

by Estee

Rating: teen
Tags: Princess Celestia, Fancypants, Gore, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Sad
Length: 11760

For nearly every citizen of Equestria, it's a holiday: a chance to get together with friends, gather a few treats, and laugh in defiance of the darkness. For Celestia, Nightmare Night is something else entirely.

For nearly every citizen of Equestria, it's a holiday: a chance to get together with friends, gather a few treats, and laugh in defiance of the darkness.

For Celestia, Nightmare Night is something else entirely.

(Part of the Triptych Continuum, which has its own TVTropes page and FIMFiction group: new members and trope edits are welcome.)

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Published 2017-11-01 02:30:06 UTC
Last updated 2017-11-01 02:30:06 UTC

The eternal costume

The night ended in pain. It always did. There had been times when she'd felt as if it always would.

'Always' was running out.

Despite what so many of her citizens believed, there were many things which Celestia had in common with the average pony. She breathed. (She was aware that was a subject which occasionally underwent some discussion.) She required food. She had a copy of the local weather schedule in her bathroom and, like so many other Equestrians, she often neglected to consult it. Sapients who lived in a society where the current state of the atmosphere had been determined moons in advance would look up in shock when showers began, then immediately conclude that somepony else had screwed up.

Celestia didn't always check the schedule. But she knew the date, and so at a few minutes past Sun-raising, with her field having finally finished splashing cold water across weary features, she glanced at the paper taped to the side of the mirror and read the arrangements. A chilly morning, moreso than usual for that part of the autumn. It was meant to be the counterbalance for a pleasant evening, one which would be warmer than the rest of the week -- but with the occasional chill breeze, cold gusts which Canterlot's weather team would spend hours setting up. The temperature variance wasn't the problem: it was having the little zephyrs (and occasional dust devil) come from multiple directions, seemingly at random. And there would be other pegasi, working closer to street level, placing the spinners and funnels, all the better to let the wind falsely howl.

A warm night with bursts of cold, and naturally there was no rain scheduled. There never was. Rain would have ruined everything. There wouldn't even be any degree of cloud cover, because there was something ponies looked at on this night, looked at more than usual, typically while giggling. Because stories were just that, you were only defying your fear of something which didn't exist, and nothing would ever change, not even when you were staring at scars unawares.

Wait until the team finishes the second shift. Go up, stay out of sight, work as fast as I can. Back and forth, herding in whatever I can find around the city. Alter the moisture content. Once everything's covered, set off as many triggers as possible within range, move to the next neighborhood...

By Celestia's best estimate, it would take her about forty minutes to, via downpour, shut the whole thing down. (She made the estimate every year, with the current size of Canterlot as her central variable.)

Maybe a little more cold water.

There were things Celestia had in common with the average pony. And then there were things she simply wished that she shared, perhaps could never share, and... if she was right to hope, then one way or another, 'never' would be ending soon.

The sole survivor looked at the reflection of her tired eyes, and wondered what it was like to sleep in.

True rest. She knew there had been a time when she'd known what that was like. But the memory of the sensation seemed to have escaped her. In her youth, sleep could have been interrupted at any moment, and frequently was. During that which had eventually turned into the battle against Discord, they'd all rested when they could, typically while at least two gave up their own renewals in the name of standing guard. But after they'd won, once the various factions had finally been pulled together (some kicking and screaming, with a few of their descendants still voicing echoes) into a nation, with the system truly running...

I would be tired, wouldn't I? And she'd see that, she'd make the offer to take over, there would be a little verbal dance because we each knew what that did to the other, but I'd always give in eventually because I knew she was making the offer because

To simply remain beneath her blankets, allowing Sun to shift its light across her face without any participation in the process. The body dictating its own needs, the clock forever ticking within her ignored. To rest until rest itself almost became too much, eyelids would finally crack open and bemusedly regard her bedroom while limbs decided they still didn't feel like moving just yet, there was no reason to trade the hard-won warmth of the fabric cocoon for chill morning air and besides, if she got back to sleep immediately, there might be a chance to resume that dream and --

-- on the intellectual level, she knew she'd done that, so many times in her prolonged life. Search long enough and the specific memories might come. (On this day, a number of them would be dropping by, regardless of what she did to stop them.) There had been mornings of simply sleeping in. True rest. But she couldn't remember what it felt like.

It was almost a thousand years of memories now: just a few more moons to go. That period comprised the vast majority of her life, and majorities had a way of ruling. So for Celestia, there was a pattern, and it often seemed as if the pattern was the only thing there had ever been. Ever could be, right up until the moment when, no matter how it all turned out, that pattern would break.

She would get up while it was still dark. She would brace herself (because she always braced herself), reach out across what had never been hers towards a domain which loathed her touch.

And then there would be pain.

There were so many kinds of pain and on this day, this Tartarus-freed so-called stinking, lying abomination of a holiday, she would go through every last one.

Technically, there was only one thing she had to do during the current cycle. (Well, five: any true accounting of Celestia's duties on any given day had to include Sun and Moon.) It wouldn't happen until much later, there was no real way of stopping it, and she technically had hours in which to try and find the strength for getting through it. But as far as official government duties went...

There were ways in which Nightmare Night was a rather minor holiday. It didn't generate anything close to the economic bump of Hearth's Warming. The actual "celebration" (she had to put quotes around the word in order to keep some of the feelings from escaping) didn't really start until after Sun had been lowered, as opposed to the full-day festivities which marked the Summer Sun Celebration

one left

and when it came to participation, there were ponies who simply never took part. But it was one of the few holidays for which the government almost completely shut down. With the exception of a few palace staff members who needed to be present for the later activity plus Guards who never seemed to go completely off-shift, it was a day when, outside of a crisis, there were no meetings, no votes, no signings -- nothing except the tradition, something Celestia hadn't seen coming and, looking at the ways it manifested in eager faces, something she couldn't find a way to stop.

The government shut down on Nightmare Night, as much as it could, and nopony really questioned why. Holidays were for many things, and that list very much included not working for anypony who could get away with it: if the palace wished to join in on that, then... well, there were only four things the palace had to do, yes? Those would be done, because they always were. Always had been.

one left

Ponies assumed that the palace (almost completely) shut down because it was allowing its staff to get in on the fun.

Celestia had shut it down because she didn't feel like doing much of anything.

She was slowly trotting through the palace (half of the palace, the working half, the only half most ponies ever saw from the inside), down pathways which had long-since passed the point of mere memorization. Occasionally, one of the few staff members who had to be there would pass her and for those who had been there for some time, the non-meeting would be conducted in silence. One going in a given direction, the other continuing on their own path. For cases where they were heading the same way, the older staff members would quickly locate a detour. They knew -- well, they knew that outside of a crisis (and there had been multiple crises which hadn't cared about the calendar), they knew this wasn't the day, and that was all they knew.

The younger ones were still learning, and some of the elders took it as their duty to educate them.

"...so if you happen to see her today, just -- try to leave her alone. Anything which isn't truly important can wait until tomorrow."

The palace had interesting acoustics: much of the original intent behind using marble (gold-flecked in the open portions, always gold) had been to make sure the sounds of invaders could bounce to those who would act on the information. In this case, Celestia quickly determined that the instruction was taking place about two bends ahead on her current path.

"How do we judge if something is important?" the younger voice tentatively asked.

"War. Death. Monsters," said the elder. "If it isn't on that level, it waits. Let her take the day off, as much as she ever does. It's..." A long pause, trying to find just the right words. "...one of those days."

"I don't understand," the young mare said, with her tones no more than one-tenth fearful. "One of those...?"

The older stallion sighed. "You were just hired last moon, right? So this is the first bad day you've been here for. Somepony should have told you, and... well, now I get to tell you. There's twelve days, scattered across the calendar. The closest ones are less than a week apart. The longest gap is more than two and a half moons. And on those days, every year, she... isn't completely herself."

Celestia stopped moving.

It had been nearly a thousand years, and events had a way of repeating. There were always older staff members passing on their wisdom to younger ones. She had nearly intruded on -- dozens? Yes, it had to be dozens -- of such little briefings. She was used to them. And yet on the deepest level, the words never ceased to offend.

Those are the days when I am exactly myself.

"Not herself -- how?" the mare timidly asked. (Two-tenths and rising.)

"She'll be friendly with everypony she has to deal with, but she'll want more time alone. Sometimes she goes out for a while. There's been hours when the Guards lose track of her, but she always comes back -- well, obviously she always comes back, we're still here, right? But they're the same days every year. The twelve Bad Days. So just -- give her some space if you see her. Maybe a polite nod. She'll nod back. Just about anything else can wait."

"Why are they Bad Days?"

"We don't ask her that."

"...why?" (One-third.)

"Nopony wants to make them worse."

"But..." The mare very audibly swallowed. "...tonight... I was here tonight when I was just a filly, and she --"

It was almost possible to hear the smile. "Oh, don't worry about that. She's fine with that. She always does it. She always will."

one left

She knew exactly where they were. She could have accelerated her pace, used a pair of line-of-sight teleports to get her closer all the faster, and then trotted into their conversation. Just to see their faces when the subject of the briefing/gossip went through the center of it.

But it was simply an older staff member briefing one of the youngest, and so she detoured for one of the gates.

Guards were chosen for their dedication. Loyalty. The ability to make a decision which might lead to a final self-sacrifice without true thought.

None of that ever seemed to include the ability to leave well enough alone.

"I'm going out," Celestia announced as she approached the eastern exit. "I'll be back before they start coming in."

All four Guards nodded. Two, choosing themselves through means invisible and unspoken, broke formation and began to trot towards her flanks.

"I'm going out," Celestia immediately repeated, and then added what seemed to be the crucial word. "Alone."

Four ponies froze.

"Princess," the lone unicorn in the group said -- Bulkhead, wasn't it? He was one of those for whom she'd been thinking --

He won't be my Guard much longer. One way or another.

"-- you know -- there are certain considerations when you leave the palace, and -- for you to go out alone..."

He'd been in her service for some time. If any Guard had the Bad Days marked on his calendar, Bulkhead did.

Sixteen years ago, wasn't it? Somepony was calling out for me, and -- that was his voice, he was afraid because he was a rookie and he'd lost track of me, he almost thought that was the most important part of the job, so he opened a door which wasn't supposed to be open or even there and started into the silver before somepony caught up with him, taught him about the twelve Bad Days, and how somepony had seen me go in, it was completely safe for me, but nopony else was supposed to

But Guards had certain considerations at all times, Bad Days or not. And it was almost possible to see the emotions lurking in features trying just a little too hard to be impassive.

"It's just you."

"Anything could happen. Anything at all. And if it does..."

There were many ways to pick out rookie Guards. Currently, the most depressing was through trotting down the streets of a high-rise residential neighborhood and watching desperate pegasi and unicorns removing flowerpots from overhead windowsills. Just in case.

"It's. Just. You."

On a very real level, she understood. But to lock somepony away from every possible thing which could happen to their body was to force the death of their soul.

"It's a short trip to a specific location," she told them all. "You can come there to get me, or send up flares if you think I'm still on the way."

"You're not teleporting?" Flux asked.

"Lack of reliable arrival points." Which was true. There were supposed to be a number of safe, open, empty spaces and inevitably, especially these days, somepony (or a certain very specific pony) would park a stack of books in one.

"So if we can come and get you," Bulkhead checked, "you can tell us where you're going."

She nodded. "The Canterlot Archives. Building Twelve. The International Government stacks --" stopped. No, that was two transfers ago. Celestia was starting to have trouble keeping up with all of the attempts to get that certain very specific pony out, or at least out of sight. "-- sorry: my mistake. Building Twenty-Three. Mathematics."

Which told them all they needed to know, and so while none of the Guards relaxed, they mutually, invisibly, and inaudibly agreed to let her imagine she was getting away with it.

"All right, Princess," Bulkhead said, and moved away from the doorway. "Enjoy your visit."

I won't.

She took off almost immediately after clearing the palace grounds, and then spent the entire trip pretending she had no awareness of the Guards trailing her from what they believed was a safe distance. Everypony had their part to play in the little performance, and hers was letting them believe they had gotten away with it. After all, granting little victories here and there made it that much easier to slip away when she truly needed to.

Building Twenty-Three.

For now.

It was possible for Celestia to truthfully say that the just-barely-adult mare was happy to see her, just as it would have been fully accurate to say that Celestia's arrival was one of the very few things which that mare was still capable of being happy about.

They talked for a while. It was easy to talk with her. The hard part was getting the subject off the only thing the mare currently believed to be important. This took a while, and so Celestia trotted at her side, occasionally breaking off for a moment in order to dodge floating stacks of hardcovers.

"...so it's really all about fine control in the end," the small, slender mare finally wrapped up, at least for the current spell. "And I just don't know if my field dexterity is high enough! Still, with enough practice -- there's some books which claim they can help, and I've been meaning to ask you about recommendations --"

She took a breath, and Celestia used the only opportunity she had. "-- are you doing anything tonight?"

Twilight paused.

"I can come to the palace?" she eagerly asked as three more stacks of books went to their not-quite-final destinations. (The current reshelving was being conducted with dedication, confidence, and the knowledge that she and she alone was Right. It was also unauthorized, undesired, and completely unlikely to keep her at the current posting through the end of the week.) "We can talk about the books there?"

Celestia carefully shook her head. "There's something else I have to do." Carefully, "It's Nightmare Night, you know. I do the same thing every Nightmare Night, for -- a long time now. I was just curious as to whether you had any plans for the --" and it took an effort to stay on verbal pace "-- holiday."

There was an expression on Twilight's face now. Celestia hated that expression, and despaired to see more of it in every passing year.

"Research."

"Research," Celestia repeated.

"I'll be off work," Twilight said, that same horrible confusion on her features as she failed to recognize how anypony else could have a different priority, "so I'll be doing research."

You were supposed to be off work today.

I know your schedule. Every hour of it. I know that you've come in to work on the last four holidays. Because that's when you feel like you have the Archives to yourself. When you can hunt for old books, wrap yourself in yellowed paragraphs as armor against the world. And just like today, you can reorganize the departments of your superiors without anypony being around to stop you because you're just that convinced that when they walk in and see how you've so clearly improved on their inferior work, they'll just have to recognize it.

I knew you had the day off and I came directly here.

"So you won't be participating in Nightmare Night?"

"Why would anypony do that?" Twilight frowned. "Those are filly priorities, and any adult who's still putting on a disguise clearly just wants free sugar. And fruit." She thought about that for a moment. "It's probably still sugar, at least for the majority. Although most fruit has some natural sugar. But when you could use time for doing important things --"

"What about Spike?"

Celestia knew what the next expression would be, and concealed her loathing well before it ever appeared.

"What about him?" Twilight dismissively responded.

"Even if you think you're too old for gathering tribute --" and the words befouled tongue and ears, soaked into fur and made it feel as if she'd never be clean again "-- he isn't. There's children everywhere tonight, out and about at an hour when he normally wouldn't get to see them. It might be nice for him, just having an evening of going around Canterlot with ponies his own age. And I know it's hard to just buy a last-minute disguise for him, but I can recommend a few places which might have ideas on custom fitting --"

And now it was the hideous combination. Dismissive confusion.

"I'll be doing research," Twilight stated. "So my research assistant will be in the appropriate location."

More books were shelved.

"I heard you're going to be transferred again," Celestia tried.

"I think," Twilight said with the conviction of somepony who'd bought into exactly the wrong personal truth, "they want me to have experience in a lot of different departments. Which all need to be reorganized anyway. And it's time with different categories of books." A small sniff. "Admittedly, some of them aren't the right books. I wasn't exactly disappointed to be told I was leaving Romance. I didn't get to do any mid-shift shelf reading for two days!"

They were even happier to get rid of you.

Everypony is trying to get rid of you. Only they can't. Because I asked the Archives to take you on, after I wrote up the terms for your research grant, watched you sign off on them without reading a single line, and then watched your face when you realized you had to have a job. I was trying to put you somewhere that you'd have to interact with ponies, every day. Hoping you would remember how. But you got kicked out of Reception in less than a day, and then they've just been moving you through different departments until you wind up telling each new Archivist that you can do their job better than they can, followed by trying to prove it.

You're alienating patrons. Ponies gallop out of the stacks rather than ask you any more questions. There isn't a single coworker who wants to have lunch with you and if you didn't insist on eating in the very empty break room when you can actually be bothered to remember that food is important, they would dread your following them to a favorite eatery. Every supervisor has done everything they could to have you transferred out. And the only reason you haven't been outright fired, the sole rationale for your coming in to any kind of employment from Day One post-lunch on, is because I asked them to hire you and they're afraid to offend me through letting you go. So they just transfer you, over and over, until you finally run out of departments. You're getting very close to that, and you don't know it.

And you wouldn't care.

"Did you hear where I was being transferred?" Twilight eagerly asked. "Is it somewhere that has interesting books?"

"There's a rumor --" a demand, a last resort, I was going to have you put there when you were ready and they're shoving you up the tallest ramp just to get you away from them "-- that ultimately, they're thinking about giving you your own department, Twilight."

She'd said one of the last things which could still draw a true response, and so purple eyes lit up. "Really?"

Celestia nodded. "Ancient History. It actually comes with an onsite apartment, so under Archive rules, you'd have to move out of your current --"

"But that's one of the best places!" Twilight gushed. "Sure, it's not High Magic, nopony's gotten around to putting me in High Magic no matter how many times I've requested it, but Ancient History -- I'd have access to Rare Documents as a secondary, wouldn't I? It wouldn't be the actual spells, but it would be the lives of some of the greatest casters!"

It is the single least visited part of the Archives. At most, you would get two patrons a day, and probably not for long, given what I've been told concerning how you lurk about and relentlessly stare at ponies to make sure they're not doing anything which might damage a book. The same way you treat the most senior Archivists.

You would be the only pony working there. You and a 'research assistant' whom you can barely remember to provide with an allowance one week out of five.

I wanted you there at the right time. The only time.

They want you there because it keeps you away from everypony else.

Forever.

Twilight was beaming now. It should have made Celestia happy, to see her student glowing with true emotion. It did not. "I might even find something by Star Swirl!"

"It's possible," Celestia quietly agreed, and watched every last undertone go skidding past Twilight's ears. "But don't tell anypony about where you might be going. Not yet."

"Okay," her student unquestioningly replied, still excited -- then paused. "Actually, since you brought up Nightmare Night -- I do kind of have a question. And you're always the best pony to ask!" Hopefully, "So if you have a few more minutes...?"

"Of course, Twilight," Celestia gently said. "What's your question?"

"Well -- that apartment you helped me find. It's in a really busy neighborhood. There's a bale-ton of ponies my own age living there! -- but of course you know that. I'm not sure you know how many parties they have, though. Loud parties sometimes. And how they just march up the ramp to my door and -- well, the thing is, Princess, I just was thinking about it and I'm sure that even with their really being too old for it, they're mostly the kind of ponies who'd still go out to gather tribute on Nightmare Night."

Celestia waited for it.

"So... do you know any way to adapt a shield spell so it'll be a plane instead of a dome? Because otherwise, they'll be knocking all night. Asking for tribute which I'm clearly not going to waste bits on buying or worse, asking me to come out during research hours. Because really, Princess, I'm living in an area where ponies just have no priorities, and -- Ancient History really comes with an apartment? Oh, I hope I get there soon...!"

There is one chance.

Exactly one. A single opportunity. Succeed or fail. Victory or potential apocalypse.

The only way for everypony to have a chance at survival is for you to be the pony I hoped you were. The one I've been looking for across the centuries. The last hope.

You are doing everything in your power to convince me that you're not.

She looked at the mare who remained the only chance, with no time left to find any other, and failed to see the happy young filly who had once been.

"Not that I know of, Twilight," and felt the weight trying to enter her words.

"Oh." There was a little sigh. "That's okay. I'll just levitate something really heavy in front of the door."

There were no clouds, and so it was difficult to fly so high over the city as to make the preparations invisible, at least not without giving several supposedly-hidden Guards panic attacks as they ran out of things to conceal themselves behind.

She would look down as she flew. Part of that was habit: there was something in her which was always checking on the city, on citizens, the nation itself.

checking to make sure it's safe

It was habit, and so she saw the fake warding signs which had drawn around some supposedly-protected property. Candy sellers setting up street booths, looking to intercept those who paid about as much attention to calendar as weather schedule and were mere hours away from realizing they had nothing to give. Recently, there had been a short craze for carving pumpkins into monster faces which were meant to terrify the things you weren't afraid of, but then either somepony had realized that they were trying to frighten the most horrifying of myths and all efforts had to be considered a longshot at best, or one too many victims had actually tried to drink pumpkin-spice tea. The fad was fading accordingly.

But there wasn't much going on yet. The true activity would take place after Moon was raised, and Moon would be full on this Nightmare Night. All the better to let ponies get a look at what they failed to see as scars. And some would look, and a few would giggle to themselves, perhaps there would be the odd shiver when a particularly strong gust blew through...

This is the last.

But would it be?

If things... don't work...

And even if her hopes came true, tradition had inertia. The so-called holiday would go on, and...

She didn't want to think about that. (She couldn't stop thinking about it.) And so she flew to her half of the palace, landed on gold-flecked marble and paid exactly as much attention as she needed in order to hear the Guards choosing different arrival sites, content that she was once again within the walls and pressed safely between their hooves. They had done their jobs. They could relax.

And as she'd already known, it made slipping away that easier.

Gold had become darkened, dust-tainted silver.

There were only a few ways left into the shutdown half of the palace. Celestia had put up some of the barrier construction herself, while other blockades had simply evolved: a covered door within a shallow alcove -- well, that alcove was a good place to display some of the smaller artwork pieces. Entrances had been papered over, coated in fresh marble, hidden behind furniture which had no idea what it was covering. The original great center divide, which began at the main entrance, had simply seen a wall built down the middle.

Celestia was aware of the stories. How the battle had involved magic which never faded, ancient curses still waiting to strike anypony who ventured within. That simply demolishing that part of the palace would release those magics, risk destroying all of Canterlot: that was the most common tale. There were also stories about gateways to different worlds, lurking monsters and, if your reading favored the Murdocks publications, you would know all about every last body which Celestia had hidden there -- something which had never struck her as an especially effective conspiracy if anypony could make up enough to write an article about it and suffer no retaliation whatsoever. Of course, her lack of striking back was often cited as proof, because she couldn't risk taking on anypony who Knew or else everypony would Know...

(There had been one article which she'd almost found precious in its insanity. It had made the claim that historically, just about everypony who'd ever opposed her was dead, which was the final proof of all the things she hadn't been doing. It had nearly sent her to quill and scroll on a futile mission to explain how mortality rates worked. And then the depression had set in.)

Everypony had their own beliefs for why half of the palace was closed off, and practically none of them pinpointed mere sorrow as the central factor. There were other reasons, yes, and there were even secrets within, something which had to be protected -- but very close to the heart of it was a simple fact: it was blocked away because there were very few days when Celestia could stand to look at it.

And those days were Bad Days.

She could have teleported in: there were sites within which would never fade from her memory, and were

now

always empty. But she used a physical entrance, one of the last, because she could. She made sure nopony was watching and that she closed the entrance completely behind her, so as to avoid a reprise of Bulkhead. And then she trotted.

The silver flecks in the marble were barely visible, and none of them sparkled. Her hoofsteps left impressions in the thick dust, occasionally overlapped all the other places she'd walked through. Tapestries had seen their designs lost under layers of settled particles, some of which had settled on top of mold.

There was no sunlight. Every window had been blocked. Every way to see what might rest within. Oddly, the most popular public belief for that wasn't an attempt to block sight of the monsters (or bodies). It was mourning. Dark drapes hung on the windows: therefore, mourning. But nopony could truly say what she was in mourning for. Lost lovers, that was an excuse which got some flight time. One scarcely-heard variation claimed a pet graveyard...

She visited a darkened library. The books were threatening to rot. Preservative spells were renewed, and the light of her casting never seemed to truly illuminate anything.

There was a bedroom. More books, some hidden underneath the perfectly-made bed.

She made the bed.

It was the same thought every time.

She never liked making her bed, once we finally had real ones again. Blankets which were rumpled from sleep were obviously in the perfect position for going to sleep again. She forbid the staff from making her bed, and on the day it happened... maybe for days before... she was making her bed.

More spells renewed, for those books were -- well, perhaps not the favorites, but they were in here and so they were important.

There was another area, built after it had all ended. It was a place only she could enter: a hundred spells made that so. It was the place she would be when the next (and possibly last) Summer Sun Celebration came to pass. She went into it and stayed there for two hours, simply looking at what was within and waiting for the tears to stop.

And then she was moving across silver again.

I'm tired.

It wasn't an unexpected thought. Emotions could drain at a rate which exertion never approached. And she went to bed too late during most cycles, always woke up too early, she hadn't slept well because it had been a Bad Day and when she'd opened her eyes for the fourth time under Moon, Philomena had left her perch. The phoenix had been with her for so long, knew the difference between a simply bad day where her pony companion would welcome comfort, and a Bad Day when no comfort could ever come.

So there were times when Celestia took naps. Tried to recharge herself during the day, find strength to face the upcoming night. Her Guards had a dozen special codes, her staff at least twice that in excuses, and they all just meant she was lying down for a few minutes. She was allowed. Old ponies took naps: everypony knew that, and she was the oldest pony in the world, her body should have been part of the dust coating the tapestries, she had outlived enemies and nations and almost every friend she'd ever had and she was entitled to take a nap.

Sleeping in. Just... staying in bed for even five minutes beyond when she was supposed to rise. She couldn't remember what that felt like.

She couldn't try it, of course. There was a certain type of pony (which had a terrifying number of blood-impossible cousins among the other species, all related by fear) who got up ahead of her, every single day. Those ponies always consulted the weather schedule, but only so they would know the exact moment Sun was supposed to appear in their area. And then they would go outside, or look out a window, possibly perch on top of a cloud, and... wait.

Ten seconds late probably meant somepony had spoken to her in the hallway at just the wrong moment. Thirty seconds was clearly a longer discussion. Five minutes would have that pony sounding alarms all over their settled zone, looking for weapons to fight off what was surely incoming monsters, screaming and panicking and unleashing all of the preparations they'd made for what they'd known would be the inevitable end of the world, something only they had the foresight to be ready for in the first place...

On the rare occasions when Celestia became ill, she did everything possible not to cough in public. It tended to do harsh things to the commodities market.

I'm tired. I want to take a nap. Before I can face what's coming tonight, I have to get some rest...

And then she was looking at a perfectly-made bed.

She didn't think about it. She never really considered what she was doing in any way. She simply laid down across the bed, one of the few in all of Equestria which could accommodate her at all, and her snout went into the pillow and it smelled like dust and age and neglect and nothing at all like what she wanted to scent so badly, her eyes closed and she

There is a pony on the silver-flecked floor, at the center of the pooling blood.

Dark forelegs are scrapping at the horn. Pushing down on it with all of her strength, and it's not enough. The horn is effectively unbreakable, and so the first result produced by desperate movements wore away fur. Then they started to carve grooves into the skin until that broke, and now there is blood running down legs and horn, the horn is dripping and blood runs down it in spirals, goes around the eyes but never into them because red eyes is something else, somepony else, she just keeps pushing her head down over and over and there's a little flash of white in the center of the deepest groove just before blood covers the bone.

When the head is not being pushed down, it is arced back, teeth snapping along the flanks. The horn is unbreakable. The coracoid is not. She has bitten some distance into the joints where wings meet the body, and more blood soaks what is left of her mantle. Feathers have been yanked out, float in the growing pool, drift around the tips of the wings, for enough tendons have been severed that they must dip. And still the pony scrapes and bites, never noticing the blood as her maddened efforts produce still more of it, uncaring about her life flowing across the marble, and in those few moments when her head is raised and her teeth are not working to break her own muscles, she speaks.

"They won't come off they won't come off they won't come off..."

The elder cannot move. Cannot approach. Cannot save her. She can only scream, as she has screamed so many times. Screams to the only one who ever could have heard, to be rescued from nightmare.

Nopony comes.

The inner clock ticked, and Celestia's eyes opened as the forever-beat approached something close to a moment of alarm.

Sun.

I... I have to lower Sun.

She'd slept -- no, she'd been trapped that long. Even with the shorter autumn days, for her body and mind to have held her down for that much time...

She had to lower Sun, and that was only half of it.

A sweat-soaked head slowly lifted from the filthy pillow. She forced all four legs to work, one at a time, until they had her standing again. Left the bedroom at something under a full gallop, and only because she wasn't sure there was enough of her assembled to manage one, much less attempt a teleport. A teleport attempted with a churning mind that had too many bits of deep time rushing through it could potentially put her anywhere.

Celestia stood in the dusty hallway, breathing at the slowest rate she could force. Closed her eyes. It wasn't necessary to do so. She could lower Sun with her eyes open, while on the gallop, in flight or during a brief pause in the middle of a conversation, something virtually everypony would miss. But this time, she wanted her eyes closed, all the better to stop seeing.

She reached. Sent thoughts up the invisible, unbreakable thread forever tied to her mark.

There was a moment of warmth.

Recognition took place without words. Sunlight suffused her soul. She felt the caress, a gentle wave of acknowledgement and welcome. The underlayer, the wish for deeper contact, for merge, that was always there, came simultaneously with the gratitude that any contact was being made. That the cycle continued and with it, the world.

WE GO ON.

The words might have come from her own mind, assigning them to the emotions. They might have come from a place much further away. But they came, as they always did, and so there was a moment when the warmth was still there, when she was filled with the knowledge that her pain meant something and there was someone out there who understood. Who needed her still --

one left

and if it works, so many more than one

-- and for an unknown time to come.

Lowering and raising Sun was the easy part.

Her eyelids squeezed. Fur wrinkled. Her mane slowed.

Hello?

The warmth was fading.

It's time.

A dull cold began to wrap itself around her soul.

I know... you know this has to be done...

Most of the time, it was a mantra. Bracing herself for what had to be done. There was a form of communication in that she would send the thoughts and results would occur, but...

Every time. She had to reach down within herself every time. She had to call on the only thing which let her do it at all.

One by night. One by day.

We are six.

We are two.

That was the part which truly reached out to Moon. She found the shadow within herself and did her best not to weep. But it was but a shadow. She could try to speak through it, at least for this, and did so because not to put herself through it twice per cycle would mean the cycle ended. She could even try to speak to it, there had been a time in the earliest part of the centuries alone when she had started to do that more and more, conversing with something which could never change or truly realize that change had taken place, she still had spent hours and weeks locked into the desperate dreams which were her talks with the fragments, and then somepony who loved her had held her head under ice water until the screaming had broken through the bubbles, the tears ran down her face and warmed the fur, and something which could pass for healing began.

The temptation... that was still there. But she didn't talk to it any more. Simply through it. And Moon knew, knew the connection wasn't right, but there was just enough to respond to and let the world go on. It would not speak to her. At most, she would feel frustration, longing, desperation, sometimes rage as emotions demanded to know where its other was -- but there had only been one day when there had been words. The last day of the old and the first of the new.

It did not speak. Not to her.

But then an image flashed in her mind. A certain alignment of stars.

Celestia blinked.

It's close. I know -- you have trouble with time, with measuring the passage, but it's close...

Was it her own memory, playing tricks on her? Or had Moon tried to give her a reminder, a message...

The cold was spreading into her limbs now. Invisible frost coated her throat. Her hooves ached, felt as if they were on the verge of splitting. It was time.

One by night. One by day.

One left.

Celestia took a breath, and shoved the intangible spear of ice into her own heart.

The night began in pain. It always did.

She was just a little late, and so the sounds of giggling were already resounding within the lone

Solar

throne room. But it couldn't have been helped: she'd needed to shower. Get her coat groomed to the point where it looked as if nothing had happened at all, and that had allowed to the children to beat her there.

It was Nightmare Night, and so the ponies of Equestria went about giving and gathering tribute. At one point during the earliest stages of the growing tradition, the youngest had begun to consider the palace as a particularly fine place to pick up what had to be some high-quality tribute. The idea had quickly spread, and for the doors to remain shut on what everypony else saw as a holiday raised too many questions, so...

Time had passed, and the new tradition had acquired its own rules. Somehow -- she could probably track the exact series of decisions which had made it happen if she tried, suspected it had its roots in her simply having waved a forehoof at a youngling she'd recognized -- an order of arrival had emerged, at least for when it came to who would come in first. For as far as Celestia could reason it, she had once greeted the offspring of a reporter and given that colt the first tribute of the night, and now it was tradition that on Nightmare Night, the children of the press would be the first into the palace. Nopony really seemed to mind, and so she let it continue. The only true consequence was having to read virtually the same coverage articles year after year and, after it had been invented, looking at pretty much the same photography.

With no crisis under hoof, it was her only governmental duty: greet the children. And it was something she hardly minded: in fact, there had been years when it was the only thing which let her get through the day at all. Children in the throne room -- that was practically always welcome. Some of them were too young to have what adults thought of as proper reverence, which meant she got treated normally for a few minutes, and then there were those who beheld a giant among ponies and had their first, completely natural thought as 'How can I climb that?' She would often wind up lying on the floor, giggling a little herself as colts and fillies roamed all over her, Celestia's body as just one more plaything, and sometimes it would be enough to get her through a few hours.

She was smiling when she trotted in. It was a smile which had been so practiced that nopony could tell there was any effort being made at all.

"Hello, my littlest ponies!" Celestia beamed. "Yes, I know, I'm late, but I'm guessing that a few of you got stuck in your bathrooms while your parents assembled the last tenth-bits of your disguises. In my case, I have to dress up as a Princess, and I think you can imagine that takes a lot of work..."

Some of them giggled at that. A few more rolled around on the floor, caught in the middle of a rather pointless squabble about who had the best tribute, which was quickly resolved when they decided to share and make it into a tie.

Celestia nodded politely to the beaming parents as she made her way to the throne itself, noting the presence of several new arrivals: ponies didn't take the tribute story until they had children who were old enough to bring in and wanted to come. This meant a few reporters left every year or so, with others bringing their fillies and colts to fill the gap. A brief moment of self-satisfaction noted the ongoing lack of Wordia Spinner's presence, which Celestia cruelly interpreted as every other pony in the realm having exactly that much good taste. And then she was climbing up to her throne, ready for the first formal offering of the night.

The children (and there were so many of them this year, moving so quickly, she hadn't even begun to get a full count yet and was just beginning to spot some of the first-timers as they cascaded across the marble) weren't quite willing to wait that long, and as soon as she turned to face them, the familiar chant --

She froze. Did everything she could to drive the sudden image from her mind.

"-- Princess?"

She took a single sharp breath, smiled at the reporter.

I was smiling. Everything's okay.

"My apologies," Celestia told the stallion -- the Baltimare Beacon was his employer, wasn't it? -- oh, right, Muphry. One of the better writers in the group, and still guaranteed to have at least one howling grammatical error per article. "I can't quite seem to shake the general malaise which settles in during a day off. Plus I keep feeling like I have something better to do than being here, like, say, eating all this tribute myself..."

A group scream of "NO!" arose from the children, and her smile briefly became true.

"So who's back? Who can I pick out at all because their disguise isn't quite up to standards? Oh, Twain, I see you there -- don't look so shocked, little gentlecolt: it's your own fault for always having your wings at the same loft. And you're new, aren't you? You, the griffon. Or the pony who looks almost exactly like a griffon. Do you want to give me your name, or are you afraid I'll -- tell on you? And then we have --"

Her gaze went left, and fell on

a small earth pony filly.

Too small.

She's the right age. She has to be: I ask the parents among the press not to bring their children prior to kindergarten, and they've always abided by that. But she's so small, she's the smallest pony here, and what I can see of her fur is blue and the holes in the mask show dark eyes and she has this look in them like she knows a little more about why she's here than we do and she's just waiting to see if the rest of us figure it out.

She'll just barely keep up.

She'll --

They were looking at her again.

"-- I -- don't know you," she said. "And I don't think I'll be able to figure it out!" Which was a dreadfully false compliment to the disguise itself, which not only clearly showed that there was a pony underneath the attempt to create what Celestia was only half-certain had been meant to present a bit of green hill, but also that the parent was doing every part of this for the first time, including learning how to operate the sewing device.

Two flowers slowly fell away from the filly's back.

"So given that," Celestia smiled, "I think you'd better be first." She gestured her right forehoof, signalling the child to approach. "Just be careful on the ramp! Or..." her corona ignited at the lowest level, surrounded a few treats and carried them with her as she got up "...maybe I should come to you, Luna --"

Time stopped.

come to you
I'll come to you
stay there so you don't get hurt and I'll come to you
stay so you won't get hurt and I'll come back
I'll come back
I told you I would come back and you came with me
you could barely keep up
you know you're too small, no matter how strong your magic is, you're so small and you'll get hurt, you'll die and
you're all I have left and
you're
gone

Nopony took a picture. She would be thankful for that. She never wanted to see what expression had been on her face, especially if it had mirrored the bleeding wound in her heart.

The too-small filly looked up at her, dark eyes moving within the mask.

"Who's Luna?"

Celestia's next breath kicked her in the stomach.

"...I... I'm sorry, I -- I have to --"

She galloped down the ramp. She bolted from her throne room. And then she was in the nearest washroom, vomiting into the sink, bringing up what felt like everything she'd ever eaten, centuries overflowing her throat with the bile of self-loathing burning her tongue.

a flash of yellow cartilage
a gout of blood as an artery severs
teeth snapping
Nightmare Night
what a fright
give her something sweet to bite

Her staff provided the excuse. The Princess had tried some of the tribute, and gotten what they were hoping was the only piece of suspect candy in the batch. It was best, really, the Princess had said, that she was the only one who'd become ill, and perhaps it was also best if everypony waited for a completely new batch to be prepared, perhaps baked directly in the palace kitchens, and everypony understood if the children didn't want to wait around, would be willing to settle for a second option...

There would still be consequences: Celestia was fully expecting the next day's stock market to dip at the moment trading opened. But the children had gone home, most bearing fresh fruit from the palace pantry. Her duties were over.

The staff had tried tending to her, openly questioned the lack of Royal Physician (again), desperately tried to get her into a doctor's office. She refused. It was simple nausea, she told them. You ate something which you shouldn't have, you vomited, and then you started to feel better. If she was still feeling ill come morning, then she would think about looking for medical help, but in her very extensive experience, she was going to be fine, and if everypony would just give her some space...

Eventually, once they understood that 'some space' meant she was going to her bedroom to rest and heal, the horde of self-assigned nurses backed off. Celestia entered her quarters, brushed her teeth, got the last of the debris out of the fur around her jaw, freshened herself and prepared for a night's sleep, or as much of it as she was expecting to gain.

Then she opened her balcony doors, trotted out, kicked them closed behind her, and escaped into the night.

The party had been in full swing for some time. It was possible to tell exactly how long by the number of empty mugs being fetched away by the waiters, plus the level of warble in some of the calls for replacements. Hundreds of ponies in disguises meant to indicate they were nothing more than trotting stacks of money moved around the dance floor in near-tumbles of squabble, practically none of which would end in an agreement to do something so petty as share. And every last one of them stopped talking as she trotted towards her goal, because they'd heard this about their host, that he was just that connected, that she would come to see him and to have her at this party, when everypony knew she never did anything on Nightmare Night other than give out tribute, to have the Princess here...

His status had increased yet again long before she reached him, and none of that elevation would ever boost his ego.

The stallion felt her presence through the rising silence, turned, gazed at her through mask and monocle. He produced a smile meant for the room, and a tiny shift of the muscles around his left eye meant for her alone.

'Is everything all right?'

"Fancypants," Celestia smiled. "I truly hate interrupting you in the heart of your domain, but -- if you could somehow spare a moment?"

'No.'

"Of course," her old friend immediately nodded. "Everypony, I believe you can get along without me for a while." Starting to trot towards her. "Princess, if you'll do me the honor of following..."

Seneschal.

When she'd first heard the word, it had meant something completely different: the steward of a noble House, responsible for day-to-day arrangements, supervising the duties of the servants. But over the centuries, that usage had been lost. In a very real way, the word had become almost extinct, leaving the last remaining definition to her alone. She based that use on the first pony she'd applied it to, one who had held that long-lost job title, and now...

A seneschal was a pony who'd been told some of Equestria's deepest secrets and chosen to believe in truth over myth.

A seneschal was a pony whom Celestia could talk to. Without the thousand little lies of politics. Without concealment. Without pretense.

A seneschal was a pony who only used 'Princess' in public, because they knew the proper way to address her.

There was one in every generation. There had to be. Without a true confidant, somepony who could be trusted to both listen to and speak the truth, Celestia felt as if she would have given up long ago. And so in every generation, when the Days became truly Bad, she would search, and...

A much younger stallion had been there on a night when everything had kicked her at once. She'd already been considering him. She'd taken the chance, and he'd never made her regret it for so much as a heartbeat.

A seneschal was a friend.

They were on one of his many balconies now. Not the one outside his bedroom: there was only so much status could be increased, and he'd said he never wanted to listen to those rumors, mostly due to what he was expecting to be a near-total lack of creativity. It was the one where curtains had been drawn, preventing all viewing from the inside. She'd added a basic sound-blocking spell, because certain measures were practical. And then she'd told him about her day.

Just about all of it.

He stood there for a few seconds, forelegs partially hooked over the railing. Thinking.

Fancypants looked up at her. (She'd never figured out how he could do so and make it feel as if they were very nearly the same height.)

"The dream," he said. "That never actually happened, yes?"

She sighed. "Not in reality. But it's what was happening inside. I should have seen it, but... there was so much going on, we were just coming off a major war, there had been casualties, heavy ones, she'd lost somepony she cared about and -- that was part of it. Looking back, that was one of the touchstones. She didn't have anypony to talk to except me, and there were words I didn't want to hear in case I started thinking about them, so suddenly she couldn't tell me things and..."

The words ran out, and she too hooked her forelegs over the railing, gazing out across Canterlot. A chill wind blasted across them both, and they heard an artificial howl spin up a few blocks away.

"It wasn't your fault," he told her, and not for the first time.

"Then whose fault was it?" Another repetition.

"Whose night is this?"

Silence for a while.

"We didn't have holidays, you know. When I was young."

"Oh?"

Celestia nodded. "We barely had seasons, with the way Discord would tamper with things. We didn't have calendars: there was no point to them. You couldn't measure day and night, you couldn't tell time by anything but breath and heartbeat. So regularly-scheduled celebrations... no way to make a schedule, plus there was that minor problem of having nothing to celebrate..." She sighed. "And anything dedicated to defying fear... you could argue that was Star Swirl's mistake." It felt so strange to say his name, even to somepony she'd told so much. "One of the first. He created a shout of defiance against the chaos and told it to just try and break through. So it did."

Curious, "Did it humble him?"

For a moment, there was a smile. "'Humble' is a hard word to use with Star. Let's say... it made him rethink his perspective for a while. But after it was over... that was when we could measure. We had a regulated day, and night, and things we could celebrate. We weren't as afraid any more, and that was the original root of it, I think. A festival of defiance, because we'd won. They were small, and the traditions were different. No disguises, for starters. It was more about confrontation, facing down what you were afraid of and trotting away in one piece. But then..." She took a deep breath. "Then there was something new to be afraid of, and very few ponies... just about nopony knew what had actually happened. For the most part, it was rumors: no newspapers, not many witnesses, and I was the only pony there for the last stage. The rumors got out, twisted, there was something new to be afraid of, and... the festival stopped for a while."

"How long?"

"About a generation," she replied. Another cold breeze ruffled her fur, failed to touch semi-tangible mane and tail. "Long enough for what few true memories there were to start fading. And when they started again, slowly, as ponies forgot, as they told themselves stories about what they thought had happened... it started in the most distant settlements: I remember that. The ones we had the least communication with. They were the ones who made the original transition from history to myth. And around that time, somepony in one of those settlements, a criminal, got into real trouble and tried to get out of town under one of the world's worst disguises. He was hiding from his fear, trying to keep everypony from recognizing him and when the law caught up, he tried to bribe them with the haul from his last crime -- the robbery of a candy stall. Things twist, Fancypants. One idiot becomes the laughingstock of the town around the same time when the festival is slowly coming back, and after a few years... that was the prototype for Nightmare Night. Disguises and tribute. And nopony remembers. Nopony except me, and you might be the only one who would believe it."

His right forehoof moved sideways, touched her left leg. She held her pose against the growing wind.

"I've never seen you hosting a gathering that large," Celestia said.

"Well, you may have heard the saying," Fancypants wearily smiled. "Party like it's the end of the world..."

She'd told him a lot. Somehow, he lived with all of it.

They stood in silence for a while. Friends mutually breathing in the night.

"If it all works," he finally said, "if you get her back... how do you think she'll react to the holiday?"

"I don't know." That was honest enough. "I think part of her would love the disguises. She is the greatest illusion-caster the world ever saw: she might love the idea of ponies going around trying to look like something else, because she tried that so many times with us." This smile was smaller. "Of course, by that time, she and I had entered our after, so it was a pretty bulky something else. The others were easier, but..." And a tiny shrug. "At the same time, she'd be facing the fact that there's an entire holiday dedicated to fear of -- something which wasn't her. Something ponies are going to associate with her for a long time, even if she came back and tried to tell everypony the truth. Told me exactly what happened, not just what I worked out and -- what the Nightmare screamed. She'd be coming back to a world which only knew to be afraid of her, and that just might send her down the spiral again. I don't know how she'll react, Fancypants. I don't know how she'll react to anything. Too much has changed, and if I got her back... how much has she changed, buried within the Nightmare? What's even left?"

And with a seneschal, the darkest thought could be voiced.

"I don't even know if there's anypony to rescue," Celestia told him, and the wind felt as if it was about to turn the tears into ice.

"So what do you know?" he gently asked.

"That we get one chance. And only one."

"Where you might win."

"No," she immediately said. "I have to lose. That's the only way this works. I have to be completely out of the fight, as soon as possible. The Nightmare has to beat me, and once that happens, it'll realize I'm not the one it has to worry about any longer. It'll go looking for its real concern, and..."

Again, there were no more words.

She has to be the right pony.

I have to be right.

All I can do is hope she's the key. A key who can't be bothered with speaking to locks.

Because if I'm wrong...

"Could you make your crown work, if you had to?"

"It's gone. It also turned back into a necklace before it vanished. I don't know who gets the crown this time, or how many there might be, if that's any at all." Ruefully, "And it also takes five other ponies, which is a resource I'm currently lacking in. Volunteers aplenty if I asked, Bearers... one. Just barely. And that'll end at the moment the new attunement begins. It has to be the Elements this time. It wasn't them at the last because there weren't six, there were two and Luna was submerged inside that thing. I did the only thing I could think of to get it out and... that's why it's like this. Because I screwed up. I found the wrong answer. And it's been nearly a thousand years, waiting for one chance..."

"Nearly a thousand years," he carefully repeated.

"At a rate of one second, per second, every second." That was another rumor, that somehow, she experienced the flow at a different rate. She didn't. As with everypony else, the stabs came one heartbeat at a time.

"All that time, waiting."

There was nothing she could say to that.

"I believe," Fancypants gently told her, "that would be called loyalty. And... love. You never lost your Element, Celestia. You still are that Element, or you would have given up long ago. Just a little longer now, old friend. One second, per second, every second... and then, perhaps, we celebrate. Yes?"

"Maybe," she replied. "It's the cruel answer, but it's the accurate one. Maybe."

"I'll go with 'yes,'" Fancypants decided. "I think that will be the truth, in the end."

Silence. The wind began to shift, the temperature slowly going up again as the clock crossed midnight.

"Do you feel better?" he asked. "For having talked?"

"Yes." As much as she could.

With an exaggerated head bob, "I serve, m'lady --"

"-- oh, cut it out."

He chuckled. "May I ask you three things?"

"Always."

"You were speaking of wishing you could sleep in. How would that even be possible?"

"I can manage Moon if I have to," she answered. "Luna can move Sun using the same method. But it hurts her to do so, as much as shifting Moon does me. And yet, even with the pain... sometimes, when I was truly weary, she would offer to take over for a cycle. I did the same for her sometimes. We just about always argued over it. Not wanting the other to suffer. But in the end, we'd just about always give in, both of us, because we loved each other enough to hurt, and then whoever had lost -- or won -- would get to rest. True rest. And I... don't remember what that feels like, or to have somepony return me to a dream I wanted to finish..."

He sighed. "Soon."

No answer.

"Second," he finally went on. "This may be -- somewhat personal..."

"They all are, when we go this deep," she said with a faint smile. "Go ahead."

"I've noticed..." And even with permission, he hesitated before going on. "When you speak about her, you generally use the past tense. But there are times, like tonight, when you speak of her in the present. You said she is the greatest illusion-caster. As if in some ways, she's... still right here."

She had told him much. More than anypony currently alive.

But she hadn't told him everything.

"I'm tired, old friend. And ancient. Coming off a nap of exceptionally poor quality. I would hope for mixing tenses to be the least of my problems tonight."

He looked up at her for a while, across that distance which was somehow so small between them. But it had not been completely closed and so after a time, he nodded.

"So what's the last question?" Celestia asked.

He stared up at Moon.

"What does that look like, without the scars?"

"Beautiful," she honestly replied. "It's... beautiful."

"I look forward to seeing it."

Only one living pony had ever seen it, and she spent five heartbeats in looking at memory.

"So do I."

She waited until school had ended for the week, cleared part of her schedule, accepted the presence of Guards, and then went on the personal apology tour, making sure to get the proper house out of the way first. The Tribune's junior palace reporter was rather startled to see a Princess on her doorstep, but was quickly talked into fetching her daughter.

Celestia slowly, carefully lowered herself to the ground, all the better to look at the tiny filly.

The fur was right, as were the eyes. But the uncovered face was almost completely different, and that helped.

"I wanted to say I was sorry," she told the child. "I know it's a special tradition, coming to the palace. I didn't mean to get sick, but I know that ruined it for everypony, and so I'm sorry. I just wanted to let you know that, in person, and that everypony is welcome to come back next year."

The little earth pony filly looked at her for a while.

"You called me Luna," she said, because the youngest had yet to learn the lies of reverence. "That's not my name. I'm Brava. Who's Luna?"

Celestia's eyes briefly closed.

"Somepony I know. You look a little like her, in your fur and eyes."

Still with the directness of youth, "Is she nice?"

It brought a smile. "Very."

And because Celestia had spoken in the present tense, "Can I meet her when I come back?"

Less than one year. Then it'll be less than one season. Less than one moon, one week, one day, the stars will be right, and...

I have to be right.

About everything.

one chance

one left

The stars would align, just as she'd been shown nearly a thousand years ago. And then there would be a new set of options.

two or none

"I hope so."