The Ghosts of the Past

2000 years ago

The pony slumped forwards, exhausted. The spell he had just attempted had drained him of virtually all his strength, and even had the indignity of failing to boot! He walked away from his station towards his bed, intent on sleeping off his fatigue. He decided that in the morning he would go back and reassure his sisters; they were busy with their own studies but must surely have noted his absence, after all, a week away was unusual, even for him. They would surely be worried sick about and it was his duty as their sibling to assuage their fears and worries.

He was just about to lie down when he heard a highly unexpected sound; he could swear it sounded like… crystals forming? But how could that be, even as far down as he was, and even with his magic’s effects on the surrounding rock and dirt, there was no chance of a crystal deposit forming in the walls. He had chosen this area specifically so as to not be worried about being disrupted by the natural processes of the land. He decided that even if it was true, he was in no fit state to deal with it at the moment.

He once again went to lie down but discovered that he could not move his left front leg; it was almost as if it was weighted down by something very dense. He looked down, expecting to find that some kind of stone he had overlooked had somehow pinned his hoof. What he saw horrified him and rendered him near-catatonic. His wings sprung open in shock as his brain could not comprehend what was happening. A single thought ran through his mind, “How is this possible?”

Present day

“Let’s get this over with,” thought Princess Celestia to herself. It had been yet another long, arduous day filled with all the necessary intrinsics that plagued royalty. Today, her time had almost entirely been consumed by countless appointments with countless ponies that all seemed to be drearier and more uninteresting than those who preceded them.

  Celestia was at least grateful that Luna had decided to sit in with her. The court proceedings were almost invariably livened up by her presence, how could they not be? After all, she was seemingly adept with the art of making fun of the decidedly dull ponies who often claimed the stage, and all of them seemed to be blissfully unaware of her humour; Luna was a master at using her wit and excellent grasp of tact to playfully insult the varied citizenry of Canterlot without them even realising what she was doing. Indeed, it appeared that only Celestia and Luna herself understood how her sister could almost make Celestia burst out laughing by using a combination of analogies, sweeping generalisations and personally ribbing the Canterlot elite. How Luna managed to pull off this incredible feat without any but her and her sister clueing in was a great mystery to Equestria’s ruler.

  Her mind briefly flicked back to an ancient memory but she quickly dismissed the thought, knowing from past experience that thinking on matters such as those, this one in particular, would only lead to revitalised feelings of grief and sadness.

“…indeed, my colleagues and I are of the firm opinion that the tax should be lowered to allow for ‘special circumstances’ such as our own…” the current noble droned on. This particular brand of nobility was more commonplace than either princess would prefer. The type who would gladly sell what soul they had left for a few more bits to line their pockets. Admittedly, they had always existed, and always would, but notwithstanding they were particularly intolerable and Celestia did not enjoy dealing with their incessant prattling about how they believed they should get special treatment from the laws that governed Equestria.

“If I may interject,” Celestia interrupted, knowing full well she had every right to, “allowing anyone to be exempt from the sales tax, or indeed even be given leniency, would greatly upset those who still needed to obey it in full; even if those who were allowed favour in the eyes of the taxpony were of outstanding class and character.” Celestia knew from great experience that the best way to handle these buffoons was to simply pander to their egos, and their fears “It would certainly inspire civil unrest, and may even spark a full uprising. And of course, the first target of the disillusioned ponies would be those who they believed (rightly so in Celestia’s opinion) to be receiving special treatment from the rulers.” Celestia knew that his demands, weak as they were through personal greed, would be unable to stand up to the time-tested might of obvious facts.

  She knew that to allow the rich to become richer would be allow hate and anger to fester within the populace, and that such a thing would be dangerous, to say the very least. First and foremost in her royal duties was that of preserving harmony; isolating herself from the masses and providing immunity from the law to the nobility would be tantamount to breaking the oath her and Luna swore so many years ago to always put the needs of the many before the wants of the few.

  This momentary flashback provoked the resurfacing of painful memories, and to her credit, Luna noticed almost immediately and took over the court, dismissing the noble whose entire case had just been sent crumbling and then tending to her sister, who Luna knew to be suppressing the pain that even now threatened to break her otherwise calm mask. The court empty, Luna asked a simple question of her sister, “What’s wrong?”

  Given the immense age of the pair, and the great many memories associated with such age, there were many painful memories that could be troubling Celestia. She answered her sister with but a single word, “Him”.

  Luna knew what her sister spoke of, a loss suffered far in the past, grief that had never been reconciled and compounded by the lack of knowledge around it. They had both sworn to each other to bury those memories deep, so as to be spared the emotions stirred up by them. It would seem, however, that Celestia’s grip on the memory of those times was slipping. Neither had yet to fully deal with the grief their mutual loss, long forgotten by history, but never by the two regal siblings. They both knew that forgetting such an event would be impossible, and both also knew that to forget would be to desecrate to memory of one who was so close to them, so dear to their hearts.

  Their short period of reflection was cut short by the arrival of a messenger. Whilst Celestia’s protégé Twilight Sparkle was fortunate enough to be able to simply send scrolls magically and instantaneously direct to the princess, the majority of messages arrived via a courier such as the one who had just been admitted to the court.

“Your majesties,” the messenger began “A message has arrived for you both, I was told it was an invitation.” With a polite nod of her head, Celestia acknowledged it and the messenger delivered the scroll. Bowing, he left the room.

“Well, let’s see which high-society event demands our immediate attention, shall we Luna?” Celestia said with a slight grin on her face, her earlier emotions put aside. Opening the letter, Celestia quickly read through it; ‘Esteemed Princesses, you are cordially invited to the Canterlot Museum of Ancient History for the unveiling of the new addition to its collection. A stunningly well-crafted, well-preserved and detailed statue dating over two thousand years old; the piece was discovered deep within the ground by...’

  The letter suddenly dropped as Celestia’s magic faltered and it slipped from her now nerveless grasp. She seemed to freeze still, her jaw dropping open and her eyes staring vacantly into space.

“What is it?” Luna asked, fear and worry evident on her face.

As she took the letter from the ground and read through it herself, she too copied her sister’s expression, jaw hanging loosely open in shock and eyes glassy with disbelief as the letter once more fell the polished floor.

At the bottom of the letter was a picture. A picture of the statue proudly displayed amongst the museum’s other treasures.

A.N. Just letting everyone know that further installments will be coming, however infrequently. I honestly did not think that writing something fun like this would be so difficult.