Starswirl looked into the mirror, his old, bearded face set in a grim line. It was the greatest battle he had to fight, and it came with every night. The Sirens? Simple peasants compared to this. The chaos magic that radiated through Equestria? Child’s play to these children.
No, little had prepared him for this nightly war, but he felt he had started getting ahold of what he had to do. So, with all of his courage, and a small sip of butterbeer to steel his nerves, he shouted, “Lulu, Celly, time to get ready for bed!”
He could hear them before they arrived, their hooves pounding on the stones of the castle as they figured out their plan of attack. He didn’t know what to expect honestly. Would they try those puppy dog eyes on him to tug at his heartstrings? Would they create a fort of books in their room again to defend against him with? He really hoped not that one, as he could still wince from the pain of books being thrown at him.
Fortunately, he could listen in on their planning this time, as he knew where they were and pressed his ear to the door.
Celestia frowned. “...Why do I have to go to sleep so early? I’m not a baby!” She glanced down at Luna with a small wince “Er, no offense baby sis.”
Luna looked at her with her wide eyes, before smiling at her sister. She was old enough to speak and such, but not old enough to understand the finer points of talking to her sister. Not always at least. She did understand what she was talking about though and threw a pillow across the room as she stomped her front hooves. “No sleep!”
“Exactly! Look the moon isn’t even up yet! There is no reason to sleep yet. It should still be quiet play time.” Celestia pouted. “I wanted to finish my book.”
Luna waved her hooves at the sky as Celestia pointed to it, before her horn exploded in a wave of white magic. It threw the poor foal backwards, and shot the even poorer moon straight into the sky. Unfortunately, Luna couldn’t quite enjoy it as she giggled from underneath some books, which was ninety percent of the furniture in their room.
Starswirl outside the door heard Luna crash and decided that now would be the best time to head in, as Luna at least would be distracted. The tiny princess wasn’t the problem though. It was Celestia. She had a voracious love for books, of which he was proud of, but it gave her ideas too, and not always good ones.
So, he opened up the door to their room, smiling a little before saying, “Girls? Are you in here?”
Celestia jumped a little at the intrusion of their pseudo father, before she looked to the pile of books that Luna was slowly clambering out of. Yes, that would have to do. She dove for the pile, her magic bringing more and more books from the shelves and floor to the corner of the room. He hadn’t seen them after all, so they were safe.
Or so she thought, as Starswirl had seen the young foal’s tail, and a trace of his magic no held itself fast to the end of her rainbow tail. So, while she sat in an immaculately constructed castle of books, getting her book cannons ready, Luna glanced at the sparkling gray magic on her sister’s tail.
Celestia blinked as she felt Luna attack her, before looking back and paling. Sure, it was cute how her sister gnawed on her hairs, but she could see what was about to happen. She went to hug her books of leather and papyrus, but it was too late as Starswirl yanked his head to the side.
The white filly crashed through the walls of stationary, before being held upside down in the room. She scowled at Starswirl, before lifting the book she’d been reading in front of her face. She was hoping that maybe if she pretended to ignore him, he’d get bored.
To say the least, it made Starswirl smile.
However, then they both heard books hitting the floor and looked at fortress that was still standing. Barely. They both then paled as they saw Luna let out a small rawr from the entrance made by Starswirl’s pull. She was so happy as her tail wagged behind her, and both of the older ponies were just shocked, praying the structure didn’t fall.
It swayed. It tilted. It went forward, it went back. And finally…
It stayed.
Starswirl let out a soft sigh as it stayed in place before putting Celestia on the ground and beginning to walk towards the little mare. “Alright, Lulu, come to me. It’s time for slee-”
“No sleep!”
Luna kicked out her hind hooves, smacking the already unstable castle. On the plus side, it didn’t cave in on her. The downside was that, while Starswirl put a magical bubble around little Luna, he failed to put one around himself as the front walls of the fortress came crashing down on top of him.
One of Starswirl’s hooves twitched from within the pile of books, but he didn’t clear them off from himself yet. Instead, he left himself buried, his leg flailing in the air as he reached out with his magic. At first, the response was weird, as it felt like it was going around in circles where he’d left it.
At least, until he lifted Luna’s bubble up, and the tiny filly continued to run around in circles in her bubble, her tiny wings beating furiously as she went upside down and around again and again.
It warmed Starswirl’s heart. Almost as much as he worried about where, in the short time she’d gained from her sister’s distraction, Celestia might have gone.
Fortunately, an invisibility spell was out of the question. The poor filly hadn’t managed one of those since she grew out of the magical surges that had the moon next to the setting sun right now. That meant she would have needed to quickly hide, and he thought of the same piece of advice that had led to her taking her hiding spot.
And so, when Starswirl looked up, he could see Celestia reading her book as her tail wagged behind her. It was all too tempting to the old man as he watched her be so happy with herself that once more grabbed ahold of the tip of her tail.
It first came as a small tug, and Celestia began to panic. She really wanted to finish her book, and so began flapping furiously as she fought against her mentor’s magic. It was… odd actually, to Starswirl. The filly was usually better about giving up when she was beat like this, but tonight she continued to flap harder and harder, and refused to come down.
So, instead of continue to fight her physically, he called to her burgeoning sense of purpose, as with the loss of her innocent, foal days, she had come to realize things that Luna had no idea of yet. And, fortunately, Luna’s bubble was airtight as he called out, “A good princess of Equestria would know she needs her sleep.”
Celestia froze where she flew, before she looked to her book, and flipped the page as she tried to turn away from him. However, this time, Starswirl decided to force her to turn towards him by taking the book from her and floating it towards him.
Until it dropped to the ground, the cover of a black and white sun facing both of them. At least, until Celestia dove on top of it.
It almost broke Starswirl’s heart to see her guard the book like this, and he walked over to the little filly. He didn’t try to make her move, or guilt her into doing as she was supposed to. Instead, he ran his hoof through her main as they looked at each other.
Starswirl then had the cutie mark on the book appear inbetween them. “Come on, little one. Your parents wouldn’t want you to possibly hurt yourself just because you wanted to read about them.”
He then leaned in close to her, before whispering, “Especially when I could tell you what really happened in these tales.”
He smiled wide as Celestia’s eyes widened, and she trotted towards him. “You knew mom and dad? I mean, you’re great, but they’re-”
“How do you think I came to take care of you? It was their wish for me to make sure you grew up healthy and strong, and that means strong teeth too, so come on. We need to get you two brushing before your sister tires herself out too much to listen to how your dad once beat a minotaur with a trout afterwards.”
And while Celestia had much to say about this, not a word of it was in protest as she galloped behind him, and the two slowly got ready for both bedtime, and now lessons in ruling that Celestia would one day tell Cadance, who would tell Twilight, who would tell Flurry Heart.
But always only after they started being willing to go to bed like good little princesses.
