A Failure To Plan

by Aquaman

Rating: everyone
Tags: Moondancer, Princess Celestia, Alternate Universe, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Colgate, Comedy
Length: 11660

Nightmare Moon's about to return and Equestria needs a savior, but don't worry: Celestia's got everything under control. Just as long as Twilight goes to Ponyville on time, and not to Moondancer's party instead--but why would she ever do that?

Princess Celestia has been planning for this day for years: the return of Nightmare Moon, the restoration of the Elements of Harmony, and the ushering of Equestria into a new age of friendship and love. Now that it's finally arrived, all she has to do is wait for Twilight to get to Ponyville, make some friends, hunt down the Elements, and save the...

Wait, what'd that letter say?

She didn't get on the chariot?

She went to whose party instead?

Oh. Oh, this could be bad. And more importantly, it's gonna need some hooves-on interference from Celestia to get her master plan back on track. But it'll probably all work out in the end. After all, how big a deal could one party be?

Third-place finalist in Aragon's "Comedy (Is Serious Business)" contest

Published 2018-02-09 17:10:06 UTC
Last updated 2018-03-10 16:15:28 UTC

A Failure to Plan

For the first time in seven hoofmaids, twenty-three personal guards, eight hundred and sixty-three democratically elected councilponies, and at least four periods of fashion that she never did manage to comprehend, Princess Celestia felt like she could finally relax.

Then again, perhaps relax was a strong word. If all went according to plan, nothing that was about to happen over the next twelve hours would be anything close to relaxing. But therein lay the rub, of course: there was, in fact, a plan. A plan centuries in the making, decades in the executing, days and weeks and minutes counted by tapping, twitching hooves—her plan to save Equestria’s present, and bring about its future.

And at the end of it all: today. The eve of the Summer Sun Celebration—the longest day of the thousandth year. The day on which night would fall and never lift again—unless, of course, the Plan worked.

And it would work. That, Celestia had absolutely, utterly, in-every-way-conceivably ensured. She’d chosen her candidates as foals, observed them as they grew, herded them into formation with unseen, all-seeing hooves. A stipend for fostering isolated farm children here, a housing credit for land-based pegasi there, a particularly creative dose of fertility magic in one instance—after all, who would dream of moving to Manehattan to be a fashion designer when she had a baby sister to look after at home?

So it was that the pieces fell into place, and time’s shadow grew long over Celestia’s cosmic board of play. A moment earlier, she’d made her final move: a letter, short and pointed, penned to her pupil Twilight Sparkle, sending her off by royal decree to make the five most important friends anypony in the history of the kingdom would ever make.

It was, to put it crudely, a big flipping deal.

But, to put it more relaxingly, it was now Twilight’s big flipping job to deal with it. And it was Celestia’s job to sit back, pour herself some well-earned tea, and pray she hadn’t forgotten anything in handing over the responsibility. Which she hadn’t, of course. Nor was there anypony she really could’ve prayed to. Herself? Her Plan? Was it narcissistic to find spiritual strength in your own machinations if you were, for all intents and purposes, actually a literal demigod?

That, Celestia decided after a thoughtful sip, was a question best left to the philosophers. And/or somepony who didn’t measure time by how many companions and colleagues had expired of natural causes since she’d started figuring this whole thing out. And speaking of companions…

“You seem pleased with yourself,” Raven said as she sidled into view of Celestia’s throne, displaying the same wan smile she always did when stating the obvious. True to form, the royal hoofmaiden’s observational skills were pretty well on point.

“You know something, Raven?” Celestia replied, clinking her cup down onto its saucer. “I should be. Aren’t you the one always telling me I should be more self-assured?”

“I’m the one always telling you you should be more assertive about it,” Raven said, still smirking. “Self-assurance is one thing I doubt you’ve ever been without.”

“Is that your way of calling me pretentious?”

“I certainly wouldn’t call you unobservant.”

Celestia hid her grin behind a sip of tea. Out of all the ponies over the years who’d been privy to the Plan, Raven was one of her favorites. For this reason—as well as Raven’s predilection for eavesdropping—Celestia often found her easy to confide in, a talent she felt a sudden urge to make use of now.

“Do you think this will work?” she said. “I mean, really work. All the way through.”

“It’s certainly quite an intricate strategy,” Raven answered after a moment’s thought. “And one designed by quite an impressive mind. I’d say your plan has as good a chance as anypony else’s would.”

Celestia chuckled, the motion again obscured by her cup. Another reason she loved Raven so: beneath her unassuming brown bun and glasses as black as her namesake, the razor-sharp mind of a politician plotted and schemed with the best of them. It was how Celestia knew Raven liked the plan: if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have tried to hide how much she wished she’d thought of it herself.

“I’ll take that as a ‘to be determined’,” Celestia said as she floated her teapot into view, the lilt in her tone as good as a wink. “Pour yourself a cup and sit down. I imagine you’d want a front-row seat for what’s about to hap–"

A chime of magic cut her off, and caught Raven’s eye in time for her to catch the scroll that materialized in midair. Celestia recognized the seal and hornwriting almost before she saw them. Just as she’d expected, her favorite student was rarely one for procrastination.

“Should you, or should I?” Raven said, nodding towards the response she’d as yet dutifully refrained from reading. With a shrug, Celestia let her trusted advisor read the message first, opting personally to procure herself a refill and lose herself to fantasy.

Twilight was probably already on her way to Ponyville now, accompanied by her baby dragon companion Spike—how long it’d been since she’d hatched him, and how short it felt to her mentor!—probably disgruntled all to hayfire that the Princess would dismiss her concerns so quickly out of hoof.

In point of fact, Celestia did find a dark bit of humor in her protege’s tendency to overreact, but this time she not only tolerated it, but outright counted on it. Twilight would rush through the preparations in time to meet all the other candidates before sundown, they’d all be driven to act by the appearance of Nightmare Moon, they’ll discover their compatibility just as Celestia had, and everything would be just…

“Um… y-your Highness?”

Back in the present, Raven seemed oddly perturbed, her eyes darting over the unfurled letter like she was having trouble reading it. Celestia sighed and put down her tea. She really needed to have a talk with Twilight about dictating important letters to Spike, even if his pensmareship was improving.

“Try turning it upside-down,” she suggested. “He still gets As and Vs confused sometimes.”

“What?” Raven shook her head, and then the paper, as if to erase the words contained on it for want of a blank page that made more sense. “No, it’s… well, she… you might wanna…”

Patience, Celestia knew all too well, was a virtue, and one best left to ponies who weren’t wondering what could possibly have made their infamously stoic servant sputter like a beached sea bass. At first glance over the paper she’d snatched from Raven’s grasp, Celestia frankly didn’t see what the fuss was about. The writing was perfectly legible, although clearly scrawled in a hurry by Twilight’s own horn:

Dear Princess Celestia,

Thank you for addressing my concerns—and, frankly, for giving me a much-needed kick in the flank. I have to admit, I was upset at first that you didn’t seem to be worried about the return of Nightmare Moon, but after talking things over with Spike and reflecting on what you said, I think both of you are right. You probably DO have things covered, like Spike said, and as for what you said… well, frankly, I DO spend too much time reading dusty old books, and not enough time living beyond them. I just can’t believe it took you threatening to send me all the way out to Ponyville for me to realize it!

… wait, threatening? Her last letter wasn’t a threat, it was an order—a rather polite one, all things considered. And realizing what? Doing what instead?

Celestia read on, skimming every other sentence, squinting at the words that flared up like burning fuses: After further consideration… chariot to leave without us… accept whatever punishment… why go to Ponyville when I could just…

“This…” Celestia murmured. “She…”

“... declined,” Raven confirmed, visibly shell-shocked in body and soul. “A direct order from the Princess. To go to… a party.”

A profound silence permeated the room. Celestia let the letter fall onto her teacup, an ash-black stain growing at the corner as it slid below the rim.

“You didn’t plan for this, did you?” Raven asked in a small voice. Celestia didn’t answer her right away. Instead, she took a deep breath, stretched her forelegs out in front of her, pursed her lips ever so slightly, and replied with a question of her own.

“Raven…” the Princess of the Sun softly said. “Who in the eternal, all-consuming, fiery pits of Tartarus is Moondancer?”

===

As if steered to do so by some instinctive whim, the crowd of giggling mares all turned around at just the right moment. “Princess Celestia!” the bluest one cried, sinking to her knees as her now-gasping companions frantically followed suit. “Goodness, I didn’t know Moondancer invited you too!”

“At ease, my little ponies,” Celestia warmly replied, the hitch in her response unnoticed—probably—by her reverent subjects. She approached her pupil’s friends with practiced fluidity, a princessly paragon of perfect freaking calm. Which she was, of course. This was nothing to worry about, the smallest of minor setbacks. All she had to do was find Twilight, explain herself a bit, and get her on a fast chariot to Ponyville before anypony there thought to ask for her. At most she’d lose, what, twenty minutes? A tiny delay, no more or less.

“It’s an honor to have you here, your Highness!” another filly—garish yellow, with a cerulean mane—exclaimed as the Princess’s eyes glossed over her. Yes, yes, it always was, but where–

“Yeah, I can’t believe it’s really…” came somepony else’s vapid praise. Celestia flashed whoever it was a hollow smile and left her be. She’d found who she came here for anyway.

“Twilight Sparkle,” she called out over the fray, sighting a reedy purple unicorn with her head hung low by the punch bowl. “May I borrow you for a moment?”

After pointing a smile at the petrified mare next to her quivering behind her glasses, Twilight dutifully trotted over, tailing the Princess out of the party’s earshot with her shoulders hunched. “I guess I don’t have to ask why you’re really here, huh?” Twilight mumbled once they stopped, wearing such a poor attempt at a bashful expression that it actually managed to be disarming anyway.

“I suppose that makes only one of us who’s surprised I am,” Celestia replied, a bit more honestly than she’d intended. With a gentle cough, she composed herself and continued. “While I appreciate your letter, Twilight, you must know it’s left me somewhat concerned as well. This, to put it bluntly, seems very... unlike you.”

Twilight nodded. “I know. It is. And I know it’s really sudden, but… well, you can’t exactly predict when you’re about to have an epiphany, right?”

“I suppose you can’t,” Celestia said. And usually I prefer not needing to, Celestia didn’t. “But Twilight, think about what you’re doing. I gave you a great responsibility…”

“And I’m honored, Princess,” Twilight interrupted—something she had never actually done before. “I truly am. But as crazy as this probably sounds, I just… can’t. I can’t break a promise to a friend just for the sake of my own career.”

Twilight turned to look back at the mares behind her in the courtyard, thankfully instead of staring at her teacher’s nervously tapping hoof. “I got so wrapped up in an old legend today that I totally forgot about Moondancer’s party, and it would’ve stayed that way if you hadn’t reminded me how important friends are. I owe her… I owe all of them so much, and I almost gave them up chasing a fairy tale.”

“That’s… a very mature outlook,” Celestia managed to say. Who the hay are you and how deep did you bury Twilight? she once again managed to not.“But be that as it may, I must insist–"

“No can do, Your Highness,” Twilight said with a smile—with a smile. A teenaged filly with anxiety issues and astigmatism looked the Princess-Regent of Equestria in the eye and said that with a moon-banished smile. “And like I said in my letter, I accept whatever consequences you deem appropriate. But like you said in yours, life is about more than studying and supervising… and if you’ll allow it, I’d like to try learning that right here in Canterlot, with my friends.”

If Celestia had been less gobsmacked, Twilight might’ve been regular-smacked. Her friends? Her friends were in Ponyville, carefully scouted for peak compatibility with both her and the Elements, unrealized archetypes of friendship and harmony hoofpicked by their Princess to save the free freaking world. They weren’t here in Canterlot, a ragtag bunch of schoolfillies Twilight had shared a classroom with once. And a dorm room that one time. And a desk at the library almost every weekend. And who she was glancing at sidelong even now, as they waved back at her and gleefully beckoned her to join them.

“So… if you’re not saying anything, does that mean I can stay?” Twilight hesitantly asked.

Okay. So, in retrospect, maybe the centuries-in-the-making, world-saving, seriously-the-biggest-of-triple-backflipping-deals Plan had one flaw. Just the one. Just the really, really big one.

“I’m gonna take that as a… yes!” Twilight said, her voice rising to a squeal as Celestia’s ever-active mind went into temporary hibernation. “Yes yes yes yes! I knew you’d understand! Thank you so much, Princess! I promise you won’t regret this!”

Too late.

As Equestria’s resident savior bounded away to accept a nauseating hug from her smiling, world-dooming pals, Celestia’s eye began to twitch. This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not, of all ways, like this.

She lit a spell in her horn, and her eye twitched again. She would—must—probably—no, definitely could fix this. She’d just approached things the wrong way. After all, if at first you don’t succeed, then clearly you aren’t a Princess. And if there was one thing Celestia knew, it was that she most certainly was a mother-loving Princess.

===

As if steered to do so by some instinctive whim, the crowd of giggling mares all turned around at just the right moment. “Princess Celestia!” the bluest one cried, sinking to her knees as her now-gasping companions frantically followed suit. “Goodness, I didn’t… oh, wow.” She raised a hoof to her forehead, grimacing with every rub. “Anypony else just get déjà vu? Like, really bad?”

“It’ll pass,” Celestia told her as she strode regally into the courtyard, bypassing the whole party to make a beeline for the mare of the hour—specifically, the full hour and change she’d lost hunting down a localized memory wipe spell in the restricted section of the archives. A crude solution, sure, but a necessary one. She’d needed a fresh run at this, and Twilight needed no opportunity to talk herself out of it.

“Twilight Sparkle!” Celestia barked. “Front and center!” As Twilight cringed and complied, Celestia addressed the rest of her gathered subjects. “As you were. Keep partying. Royal business. No questions.”

How’s that for assertive, Raven? Celestia couldn’t help but think as her message echoed across the grass-laced cobblestones. Not that Raven would ever find out about this, or anypony else. Like the rebellious filly brought to heel before her, this was minor, and easily dealt with through carefully measured force.

“I-Is Twilight in trouble, your Highness?” asked one of the fillies as master and student turned to leave.

“Yes,” Celestia said firmly. Mostly figuratively, but that’s a bridge you don’t remember crossing. “Yes she is.”

Leaving her frowning former friends behind, Twilight followed along with her head hung low, galloping a bit to keep up with her mentor’s lengthy stride. Once they’d passed the spot they’d stopped at before, Twilight quickened her pace—after slowing a bit to shake her head and blink—until the two of them were level.

“Princess Celestia, I–"

“No excuses, Twilight,” Celestia interrupted. “I gave you an order, and you disobeyed it. There’s no point discussing things any further.”

All right, another point for Raven’s tally: it was rather satisfying to take charge like this. Maybe she should try this tone of voice at a state dinner sometime—or no, a council meeting. Stars above, what she wouldn’t give to see a few of those stuck-up powderpuffs cowering in their seats, sniffling and crying like impuissant little…

Wait, no, that was Twilight. Oh, banish her to the moon, Twilight was crying.

“I-I’m so sorry, Princess,” Twilight sobbed—dear sweet Twilight, the shy little wallflower, the one who always stayed up late for storytime when every other foal was asleep. “I never wanted to disappoint you, b-but… t-they’re my friends and I just thought maybe...”

“No… no buts, Twilight,” Celestia grunted, biting her lip until she got annoyed enough at the pain to direct it at her favorite—ow ow ow OW—she meant, insubordinate student. “You disobeyed me, and now I’m disciplining you because that’s… that’s what I do. To ponies who disobey me. Sometimes. When they deserve… I mean, just sometimes. You know what, it’s not important. Just follow me and don’t talk, and don’t–"

Suddenly Twilight bounded in front of her, eyes brimming over, lips curled back in despair as she prostrated herself before her. “Omigosh omigosh I’m so so so sorry!” she wailed into her hooves. “I’ll never do it again, I promise, just please don’t banish me! O-Or expel me, or be disappointed instead of just mad, or… I-I’ll do anything you want! I’ll write a report on why parties are bad, and why I should never ever not do what you say, a-and the entire history of the Summer Sun Celebration! A thousand… no, two thousand pages! I’ll cover the Equinoxes and the Winter Solstice too!”

“Twilight, just…”

Before she could even finish asking, her student shut up in an instant, whimpering softly and rocking on her hooves. “Okay, first of all, that was the polar opposite of not talking…” Celestia began.

“I’m so sor–"

“Nonono, no talking!” Celestia raised her hoof to Twilight’s mouth, hovering it over her lips until she regressed back to breathless, wide-eyed—stars and sun, it’s like kicking a Breezie—snivelling again. “Anyway—second of all, I guess—I’m not disappointed, per se, I… no, wait, maybe I am. I think I am. Or, um…” She twitched her hoof in midair, rolling her tongue in thought. “Worse than stressed out, but less than upset?”

“... peeved?” Twilight quietly suggested.

“Yes!” Celestia shouted, her hoof now triumphantly pointed at Twilight’s nose. “Peeved. I am very peeved with you right now, Twilight. And I really need you to go to Ponyville and check on the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration and not be at a party in Canterlot right now, because no one else can do it, because… because I… said so? Because I said so.” Fine. Two flaws in the plan. One and a half, technically. “Did all that make sense?”

Twilight bobbed her head, snot still congealing on her upper lip. “Of course, Princess Celestia!” she gushed. “It makes perfect sense. Nothing is more important than what you want me to do, not even my friends!”

Celestia’s hoof fell to the ground, but just as quickly rocketed back up, this time joined by its twin. “Whoaaaawait wait wait waitaminute, hold on, that is not what I meant to–"

“I can’t believe I could’ve been so presumptuous.” Twilight was totally undeterred, the look of dawning comprehension in her eyes matching the one of sinking horror in Celestia’s. “I almost gave up everything: my studies, my duty to you… to all of Equestria! What if the Summer Sun Celebration is a disaster because I wasn’t there to check on it? What if Nightmare Moon does come back and you’re too distracted to stop her? And all for what? A few ponies I hang out with sometimes?”

“Twilight, honey, sweetheart, I know what I said came out very wrong, but–"

“No, you’re absolutely right, Princess,” Twilight declared. Her eyes were dry, her voice clear and clean as a low note on a slide whistle. “And I’ll be better. From now on, I swear to you that I will never let personal desires distract me from obeying you again—and to make sure of that, I promise you that I will never make another friend as long as I live!”

Twilight finished with a flourish, beaming with pride. Celestia’s hooves—pulled over her mouth without her realizing—slowly fell to the ground.

“Nightmare take me, I just scarred you for life, didn’t I?” she weakly wondered aloud. Twilight made to answer with a deep breath, which in itself was the only answer Celestia needed. “Yep. Okay, then. Back to the drawing board.”

“Whatever you’re talking about, I’d be honored to help with it,” Twilight said, crumpling into a bow beneath the tip of Celestia’s glowing horn. “What do you wish of me, Princess? What can I do?”

“As a matter of fact, Twilight, my most beloved and faithful student,” Celestia said, squeezing her eyes shut so the twinge behind her horn wouldn’t affect her spellwork, “you can shut up.”

===

Dry-eyed and still a little bit off-kilter from the highly-discouraged-but-not-technically-forbidden magic coursing through her brain, Twilight re-entered Moondancer’s party to a welcome worthy of a soldier returning from battle. “Twilight! You’re back!” shouted the Blue One—it was far from the worst nickname Celestia had ever given someone—as she galloped to greet her. “We were so worried when you left! Is everything all right? Is the Princess still–"

A sudden flash of light stopped her in mid-shout, leaving her blinking and blank-eyed until her glassy gaze slid down to the mare hanging from her forehooves. “Twilight! You made it!” Blue One squealed, finishing the hug she didn’t remember starting before pulling Twilight into a headlock and roughly tousling her mane. “And Lyra thought you weren’t gonna come! Come on in, the gang’s all here! And…”

Celestia recognized the hitch in the little mare’s voice, could’ve predicted every motion that would follow: the shuddering intake of breath, the single smack of suddenly dry lips, the saucer-sized eyes zeroing in on a pony who really should’ve known better than to think she could slip by in the background. Maybe not everypony would agree, but in Celestia’s opinion it really was hard being tall, white, and an authority figure with inherited implicit power.

“And you brought the Princess with you?” came Blue One’s eminently predictable cry. “I–"

“Didn’t expect to see me here, yeah, I know!” Celestia finished, wearing a smile as thin as her patience. “Life’s just full of surprises, isn’t it? Little ones, big ones, ones that threaten the world as we know it, ones that make you question your parenting skills even though you’ve never had children in a thousand years of existence, which is really a whole other kettle of proverbial…”

Celestia paused, poured herself a cup of tea from a nearby table, drained it in one gulp as the light from her horn washed the courtyard out white, and then serenely regarded her subjects once more. “I’m told one of you is Moondancer. Which one of you is Moondancer?”

At the back of the now-groggy crowd, a grayish-yellow hoof tentatively rose into view. With two pointed nods, Celestia directed Moondancer towards the tea table and the rest of the group towards Twilight, who it turned out had shown up to the party after all even though Lyra thought she wouldn’t.

“So, Moondancer,” Celestia said over the ensuing gleeful shouts and one easily ignorable instance of disoriented groaning. “How lovely it is to meet you, Twilight’s best friend apparently, for the first time. Come, sit, get some tea. I assume it tastes great. I wouldn’t know.”

Moondancer gaped, and neither sat nor got some tea. Once Celestia floated her a cup and a cushion and firmly pressed both into her hooves and flank, respectively, she found her voice again, albeit only a portion of it. “She… I-I’m her what?”

“Her friend,” Celestia replied. “Best friend, I’m led to believe.” And in fact, sitting across from the mare only reinforced that point: save for their color palettes and choices of eyewear—good grief, she even wears her mane the same way—Moondancer and Twilight might as well have been siblings. “And now that I’m here, and Twilight’s here, in Canterlot and not in Ponyville, I thought I might enjoy getting to you a little bit.” Celestia swallowed her sip of tea like a lump in her throat. “Just to fill in some… blanks in our relationship, I suppose.”

Moondancer gulped, hunching over her saucer as it clinked and shuddered in her lap. “Well, she’s… I mean, we study together a lot and help each with projects and… I don’t know. I’m probably not her best friend, I just thought I’d, y’know… have a party, maybe, and…”

“Good, so you are close,” Celestia said. “That makes sense. I guess I’m just curious to know how close. Not that it’s particularly important for me to know, of course, that’s a personal matter between the two of you, but, y’know… on a scale of one to ten, with ten being ‘willing to disobey a royal directive for a six-pony soirée,’ where do you see yourself ranking? Rough estimate. Totally theoretical example.”

To her credit, Moondancer didn’t buy the deflection for a moment. “She… Twilight did what? A royal… oh no, y-your Highness, I didn’t want to… this wasn’t supposed to be a big deal, just… did she really?”

“Mm-hmm,” Celestia hummed through her upturned cup. “She was supposed to leave for Ponyville…” She squinted up at the sun and did some harrowing mental math. “... more than two hours ago—deep breaths, Celestia, not a big deal—but she came here instead. To a party, hosted by you, whose friendship she must value to a, I’m just gonna safely assume here, very significant degree.”

“She… she really did that? For me?”

“Yep. Yes, she…” In mid-sentence, Celestia finally noticed the look on Moondancer’s face: breathless, utter confusion, mixed with a wavering giddy glint in her eye. On further review, maybe three cups of tea enough for now.

“She did, Moondancer,” Celestia said, her tone softened as much as she could manage. “And it surprised me too. And I really need to know why she did it, because a lot of ponies are depending on her right now, more than she knows or ever could know. So for their sake and mine and, I’m not gonna lie, mostly mine at this precise moment, I really need to know what you mean to her.”

“I… I don’t know. I guess more than I thought,” Moondancer murmured with a furrowed brow—or maybe it always looked like that. It’d probably be counterproductive to ask. “I just don’t understand what I have to do with any of this. Or why it’s so important.”

Celestia bent a motherly smile onto her face, her thoughts tied like mooring ropes to each of her airy words. “It’s nothing you should be concerned about.” Yet. “Really, it’s just a matter of inconvenient timing.” Secret pun intended. “I’m sure everything will be fine.” Ish.

Moondancer was undeterred. “It’d have to be something big, otherwise you wouldn’t come to get her. I mean, that is why you came, right? Has to be. And that means it’s urgent too.”

“Not… not necessarily,” Celestia said, unsure of whether Moondancer believed—or heard—her. “It’s just a–"

“And she wouldn’t have even RSVP’d if she’d known about your order in advance. She’s way too much of a stickler for schedules to do that,” Moondancer went on. Celestia recognized the look again: the same one Twilight got whenever the world around her slipped beneath her train of thought’s wheels. “So whatever it is, it’s recent. Like, today recent. Related to the solstice? Something magical, aligned with cosmic movements…”

“Actually, it–"

“And then there’s where she came from. Not the library or the royal landing strip, but her own house. Getting ready to leave… or looking for something? Something she needed, that wouldn’t be at the library… and she always travels light, the only thing she ever brought on our graduation trip was books, so… a book. But a book only she had?”

“Well, that’s–"

“No, a book that was important to her. That made her change her mind about listening to you, and come here instead. A book related to me, and the Solstice, and something urgent that you needed her to deal with…”

Moondancer went silent, chewing the edge of her hoof in thought. Celestia waited ten seconds for an interruption, then fifteen, then twenty. “Okay, are you done now, or…”

“Yeah, I guess I’m done,” Moondancer grumbled, her hoof falling to scuff against the ground. “Darn it, I really thought I was going somewhere with that.”

“Well, then,” Celestia replied, her internal voice nagging her over the inevitability of what was about to happen. “In any event, this has been a lovely chat, but I’m afraid I really must–"

“Predictions and Prophecies!”

Mm-hmm. Called it like a steeplechase.

“For her birthday last year,” Moondancer went on. “I gave Twilight a copy of Predictions and Prophecies for her birthday last year. She must’ve seen it after she heard from you, remembered where she said she’d be. And she must’ve been reading it anyway, because why else would she have it out, but the only thing in that book even remotely related to the Solstice is…”

Moondancer’s eyes flared wide. Her hoof crept towards her chin again. “Nightmare Moon. The longest day of the thousand year. The prophecy, it’s… oh my gosh, it’s real. Nightmare Moon is real.” The unicorn mare looked up to Celestia, stricken with terror, trembling from head to hinds. “She’s real, and she’s returning, in Ponyville, tonight, and you need Twilight to help you stop her, but Twilight’s not in Ponyville like you need her to be because she came to my party instead because I gave her that stupid book! That’s it, isn’t it? We’re all gonna be doomed to eternal night, we’re all gonna freeze to death in an sunless winter, and it’ll be all my fault!”

For a good while—ten seconds, then fifteen, then honestly she stopped counting after that—Celestia didn’t respond. Finally, she gently set her teacup down and considered Moondancer with a pointed, tight-lipped stare.

“So,” she began, carefully enunciating every word, “just theoretically, of course… if that were the case, and the plan I had to stop it was shot to Tartarus by your little get-together here, and we as a surviving species were leaning on an ever-shortening length of time with which to fix said shot-to-Tartarus-ness… on a scale of one to ten, how well would you handle that information?”

With a fluttering of her eyes and a tiny, mournful squeak, Moondancer rolled off her haunches and fainted.

“Yep,” Celestia muttered as she poured herself another cup of tea. “Kinda called that one too.”

===

Before she began to speak, Celestia went through her usual pre-negotiation routine: a quick roll of her shoulders, a slow and deliberate wetting of her lips, a violent spasm in her hind leg that bumped the table hard enough to knock her teacup askew on its saucer, and a blink that transitioned into a friendly but piercing glare.

Okay, usually it came off a little less manic, and her various limbs all usually went along with the program, but so be it. The three mares seated across from her didn’t seem to mind, and she wasn’t keen to waste any more time than was absolutely necessary. It also didn’t hurt that was head was starting to throb from all the memory spells she’d cast today. Or… technically, it did hurt? Was that how the phrase was supposed to be used? Whatever. Off-topic. Back to business.

“So,” she started, turning her gaze to the first of her interviewees—for that was what the rest of Twilight’s friends had become once Moondancer had been roused back to consciousness and sent tottering off to refamiliarize herself with her own party. “Twinkleshine, was it?”

“Um… y-yes, ma’am,” Twinkleshine stammered—not a strong start to the interview, Celestia bit her tongue to avoid saying. Sure, she could recover later, but this wasn’t just some catering gig she’d use for laundry coins and snack money. Over the next few minutes, Celestia intended to find out exactly how suited each of these three mares were to become one-sixth of the unearthed and reformed Elements of Harmony—a not-at-all half-cocked scheme that Celestia, in a stroke of improvisational brilliance, had come up with on the fly after noting the strong and surely varied friendships these mares all already shared, and/or the facts that it was a quarter to three already and there were six of them already here together anyway.

“So, Twinkleshine,” Celestia continued, “tell me about a time you acted heroically in the face of great, preferably mortal, peril.”

“U-uh… well, I…” Twinkleshine gulped her first attempt at an answer back down into her lungs, rubbing her hoof against her throat as if encouraging it to regurgitate something more convincing. “There was this one time where I forgot about a term paper and, um… stayed up all night to write it. So that was kind of… perilous. To my grade point average.” Twinkleshine’s awkward grin dropped like a stone into the gaping chasm of Celestia’s silence. “I… got a B-minus?”

“I see.” Celestia turned to the mare in the middle next. “Miss Lemonhearts, what would you consider to be your greatest strength? Preferably of a magical and/or pugilistic variety.”

Lemonhearts glanced at Twinkleshine, then back at Celestia. “I don’t… I mean, I guess I’m pretty good at cooking and I like to sing in the shower sometimes, but… I thought you said you just wanted to know if we were good friends with Twilight?”

“Lyra Heartstrings,” Celestia continued, once the flashburn in her eyes began to fade and the pounding in her temples died down a bit, “if you were in a bunker hiding from patrolling enemy soldiers and a baby in the bunker started crying, what would you do to stay hidden?”

“Ooooh… I would… um…” Lyra’s bleary eyes drifted across the table, swaying to and fro for a moment before finally sticking on Celestia’s face. “What was the question?”

After composing herself with another tried-and-true interviewing tactic—this one involving her hooves pressed against the bridge of her snout until the blackness behind her eyelids flared up white—Celestia sighed and took control of the conversation again. “Okay, let’s try something different. How long have you all known Twilight Sparkle?”

“Since magic kindergarten, I suppose,” Lemonhearts replied once she got herself together in kind, her companions concurring with nods of their own.

“Great. And since magic kindergarten, what kinds of, shall we say… adventures have you been on? Anything particularly memorable, perhaps involving, I don’t know, an external challenge framed by intragroup conflict? Clashing personalities tempered by steadfast friendship? An easily digestible moral that you leveraged into a never-ending quest for personal improvement?”

Lyra blinked. Lemonhearts coughed. Twinkleshine twiddled her hooves and stared pointedly at the sky.

“All right, fine. Last question, for all three of you this time,” Celestia intoned. “In fifty words or less, present strong, conclusive evidence to me that you possess, somewhere buried deep within your psyche, a personality. Literally anything. Strong, demure, chaotic neutral, whatever you got. Hit me. I very literally do not have all day.”

Twinkleshine bit her lip. Lemonhearts sneezed. Lyra’s cheeks puffed out as she sat up straight in her seat, but deflated just as quickly as her moment of inspiration passed her by. On Celestia’s side of the table, the liquid in her cup shuddered again, jarred by a sudden impact about six inches beneath its rim.

Okay, Celestia told herself, remembering to close her eyes this time before the proverbial fireworks began, so that was a bust too. But that’s fine. This is all fine. Instead of meeting her platonic soulmates and saving Equestria, Twilight chose to be friends with a spastic extrovert, a biological clone of herself, and three wet blankets wrapped around loaves of white bread. Perfectly rational. As good a reason as any to cause the literal end of the world.

No, no, nonoshutupno, came her more confident side’s reply. I can roll with this. I can still make this work. I just need to… talk to Twilight again. Convince her to see things my way. Our way. The way of every sentient being in the kingdom. Easy-peesy. She’s a rational mare, after all. I just need to stay calm, not overreact, and figure out just the right way to make her understa…

Celestia looked up, suddenly conscious of the limpness of her jaw. Across the table, three pairs of dazed and confused eyes regarded her with ever-growing concern.

“I said all of that out loud?” Celestia muttered, less as a question and more as a statement of freshly realized truth. In simultaneous response, Lemonhearts groaned, Lyra moaned, and Twinkleshine toppled over sideways to retch into a bed of rhododendrons.

“Oh, quit complaining,” Celestia growled as she lit her horn once more. “You’re not the only one who’s stressed.”

===

“Twilight!” Celestia shouted as she sprinted into Moondancer’s party. “Twilight Sparkle!”

Across the courtyard, Twilight turned away from the pinata she and her friends had gathered around, a broad wooden stick still held limply in her magical aura. “Princess Celestia?” she quizzically replied. “W-What are you doing here? Is this about–"

“Oh, thank goodness I found you,” Celestia gasped, pantomiming desperate exhaustion as best as she could remember it feeling like. “I need your help, and you’re in terrible danger, and we need to leave town right away for both those reasons! Pack a bag, grab Spike from whatever donut place you left him at, and meet me at the royal landing strip. There’s not a moment to lose!”

“Wait, a moment until what?” Twilight asked, her friends clustering around her as her ears turned down with worry. “What’s going on, Princess?”

“Oh, it’s awful, Twilight! Just the worst, most motivationally horrifying thing I’ve ever seen,” Celestia cried. “You see, Twilight, I’ve just discovered that all of your friends are, um… changelings!”

===

“... servants of Pythros, Titan Lord of the Underworld!”

===

“... life-suckingly boring!”

===

“... an anti-monarchical cabal of very cleverly disguised ducks!”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. “The Billuminati? But I thought they were just an old mare’s tale!”

“They… wait, that one actually worked?” With a vigorous shake of her head, Celestia jarred herself back on track. “I mean, yes. I mean, no, they’re not an old mare’s tale. They’re real, and they’re here to… assassinate me!”

===

“… turn us all into glue!”

===

“... discover what evil lurks in the hearts of mares!”

===

“... cancel your favorite book series!”

Twilight gasped and cringed, her eyes filling with vengeful tears. “Those animals…” she seethed, trembling in place from anger and/or vertigo. “And right before the final volume too!”

Yeah, really should’ve tried that one first. “Yes, my dear student,” Celestia confirmed. “It’s true. And I’m afraid you’re the only one who can stop them. Which is why I need you to leave this party immediately, go to Ponyville, and… save Equestria!”

===

“... just save yourself? No pressure, just self-preservation?”

===

“... make new, better, more varied friends?”

===

“... you know what, honestly, just… leave town and go to Ponyville. That’s the important part. We’ll figure the rest out on the way.”

“I… w-whatever you say, Cincess Prelestia,” Twilight slurred. “Thanks for… knockin’ out all the ducks.”

“The what now?” It took Celestia a moment to notice Twilight’s friends, flat on their backs in various stages of magic-induced dissociation. “Oh… yeah. They’ll be okay,” she said, taking a moment to stamp her right hind hoof twice. “Anyway, we’re burning daylight here in multiple senses of the phrase, so get whatever you need to travel and let’s–"

A sudden wave of heat set the hairs on Celestia’s neck on end, and the colossal BOOM that followed sent her tumbling to her knees. She righted herself inside a haze of acrid smoke and pulverized masonry, a spell already lighting in her horn and a vein-bulging tightness in her jaw.

“Raven,” she said once her magic connected her to her hoofmaiden. “That was my right hoof.”

“You said your right hoof!” came Raven’s ethereal, indignant reply. “Two taps of your back right hoof meant ‘blow up the old bell tower next to the lower courtyard’ so you had a punchy finish to the pitch! Which, need I say again, was a psychotic idea to begin with!”

“First of all, no it wasn’t,” Celestia snipped back, stifling a cough as a cloud of debris settled inside her throat. “Second of all, you’re the one with her hoofprints all over the royal armory right now, so mind your step over that thin ice you’re skating on. And third of all, what I said was my left hoof meant blow up the bell tower! Right hoof meant don’t!”

“That is… unequivocally not what you said!”

“Well, you unequivocally just committed domestic terrorism, so by all means feel entitled to your opinion.”

“On your orders, you senile old… argh! Just forget it! Now what were we gonna do? We only have two hours until sunset!”

“First, I will choose to politely ignore that remark, you tight-flanked little twerp,” Celestia said, in a totally collected and regal way. “Second, you’re going to call the municipal fire department off and tell them that this was an arcane experiment gone wrong, which—shut up—is technically not a lie. And third, I’m going to fix this place up, think of another plan, and get Twilight to Ponyville before Nightmare Moon comes back. That is what I am going to do, thank you very much.”

Raven’s sour voice didn’t grace Celestia’s ears in reply, but another pony’s did, much quieter and closer at hoof.

“Nightmare Moon’s coming back?”

Through the clearing haze, Celestia saw Twilight Sparkle rise to her hooves, coated in grime and supporting herself with Twinkleshine’s twitching supine form. Add to the to-do list: smelling salts for the boring friends. “She’s really gonna return?” Twilight asked again. “Tonight? Like the legend said?”

For the briefest of seconds, Celestia considered telling her the truth. In the briefest of moments, Twilight saw it in her eyes anyway. “That’s why you wanted to send me away,” she murmured. “She’s coming back in Ponyville. You wanted me to stop her.” Twilight looked at the ground for a moment, then back up at the Princess—no fear in her gaze, nor anger or scorn, just honest and earnest confusion. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“I…” Celestia said. “I…”

===

“Star Swirl’s beard, where do I even begin?

“You want to know something crazy? I have no idea how old I am. It’s true. Hundred percent factual. That’s how long I’ve been doing this, how long before that I must’ve been around before the kingdom I rule even existed. I don’t know where I was born, who my parents were, whether I even have parents. This one cult a few hundred years back—I forget the name, New Solar something-or-other—thought the sun gave birth to me, real arcane mythological stuff. Even today, a lot of ponies think I’m from someplace else entirely, that I’m some immortal, all-knowing goddess sent to rule over ponykind by some inscrutable higher power.

“And you know what the actual truth is? I just honestly don’t remember. I’ve seen too many things, lived too many lifetimes to keep track of them all. My memory’s pretty good for about a century or so, I’ve still got the general gist back through two of them, but before that? Nothing. No faces, no names, no big events, even. I read history books sometimes, primary-source accounts of negotiations I made and battles I won, and just… nothing. Like time’s a big long railroad, and I’m just clipping cars off the Celestia train the second I’m done walking through them.

“You can’t avoid it when you live this long. Some part of me—the mortal part, I guess—just fades after a while, just melts into this reverent, impenetrable shell that I don’t know any better but to hide in. Stars know I tried not to. I still try. I can’t help it. I’m social, you know, I… I talk to ponies. It’s all I’m good at, all that gives me comfort. It’s the only thing that makes me feel like this is the real world, and not just a dream I’m sleepwalking through because I’ve had it so many times already.

“But you talk to enough ponies, you see enough things, you learn what life looks like from start to finish a dozen times over, and suddenly it all slips away again. Suddenly the pony I’m talking to is gone, aged and married and grown old and died in the time it felt like it took me to blink. And still I talk to them. Still I have to, even though it breaks my heart, even though every friend I lose and companion that leaves me behind takes a piece of me with them that I’ll never get back.

“So what do I do instead? I plan. I think, and I talk, and I plan how to keep everypony talking, because ponies don’t talk if they’re hungry and scared, and they don’t get to live the one life they’ll ever have if they don’t spread those pieces of themselves for others to take with them when they go. And that’s where this plan came from—the capital-P Plan, the one that everything and everypony hinges on.

“It started with Luna… stars, didn’t everything, huh? Luna was my other half, the water to my fire. She was always the planner—that I do remember—always the one who thought things through, who had an answer for everything and for whom everything always had an answer. I thought I could manage things without her, thought when the Nightmare took her I could rule a kingdom alone just as we would’ve done together. And honestly—selfishly—thank the stars I don’t remember how badly I failed. How many lives were lost, how many more were never lived because of my arrogance or my stupidity or my outright banishible incompetence.

“Two hundred years ago—close to the exact year, actually—I finally just... snapped. I hid myself away, didn’t eat, didn’t sleep. Let the kingdom run itself without me, convinced myself it was better that way. And you know what I realized? I was half right. Not in the way I thought at the time, but in a grander way, one that got me out of my chambers and back into the world—gave me a purpose within it that I’ went without for centuries up to then.

“And that’s what the Plan is all about. The epiphany I had on the floor of a pitch-dark room next to a fireplace I’d refused to light: I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t rule Equestria alone. I wasn’t strong enough, or smart enough, or capable of learning enough to make up the difference. I wasn’t the Princess the ponies of Equestria deserve… but I was the only one they had. And what I could do for them—the one thing I was capable of doing—was find them a better one. Somepony better than me.

“So I started searching. Not in the open, not in a way anyone would notice, but every pony I met, every new face and name that filtered through my mind, I thought to myself, ‘Are you the one? Are you the deliverance I’m looking for?’ And of course, nopony ever was. I met a lot of good ponies over the years, a lot of smart ones, some who other ponies looked at and thought the world of and more. But none of them were right. None of them were the best a pony could be.

“And then Cadance… I wasn’t even looking for Cadance. It’d become a routine at that point, to just glance at somepony and think ‘No’, only half-remembering the reason why. But then, after a hundred and eighty-six years of searching, there she was. This skinny little pegasus filly, all legs and shoulders, standing off to the side while her parents petitioned the royal court for… I don’t even remember. I hardly heard them even back then. One look at her was all it took. I still wasn’t sure what I was looking for exactly, but in that moment, beyond a shadow of a doubt, I knew that bony little filly had it.

“And by the stars, she did. She was everything I’d been searching for and more: kind, intelligent, tenacious and courageous… and in her eyes I could see fire, the light of a thousand suns burning in her soul. She survived abandonment as a foal, famine and pestilence and two different wars, monster attacks day and night once she finally found a mare and stallion in the Badlands willing to take her in… and through it all, she never gave up on the world. She never stopped believing in the goodness of ponies, and the role she could play in being good to them.

“I… embarrassed myself for her, honestly. I brought her to Canterlot, gave her everything I had to give, even formally took her in when her adoptive parents passed, and the only complaint I ever heard from her was, ‘Auntie, why can’t I do more? Why can’t we do more to help the ponies who need it?’

“And the only way I ever realized what was still missing was because she was so good, because little Mi Amore Cadanza was the best Equestria had to offer. Because I watched her sweat and watched her toil, watched her give every part of herself to Equestria and expect nothing in return… and I realized she was just like me.

“Someday she would rule the kingdom as I did, and the ponies would love her as I did, and someday—inevitably, irreversibly—she’d fail. Someday the last piece of her heart would chip away, and she would break just like I did. Because nopony, alicorn or not, great or terrible or anywhere in between, could do this alone.

“Go figure, Cadance found her partner long before I did. She wanted a job during the afternoons, something to tide her over between school lessons and soup kitchens, so she made some bits babysitting for foals all over the city. And silly, stupid me—still searching, still content to wait another two hundred years to find a pony half her equal—I barely even noticed her gushing over the family she loved the most, this West Quarter pair with a dorky colt her age and a precocious little filly no more than five or six.

“I mean, what was I supposed to think? ‘Oh, the boy Cadance very obviously has a crush on has a little sister who’s antisocial and advanced for her age? Clearly she’ll be the savior of all ponykind!’ It’d have been ridiculous. The whole thing still is ridiculous. I would’ve missed her entirely if her parents hadn’t signed her up for the school that, fun ironic fact, I sent up explicitly to farm through candidates—zero prospects in over ten thousand graduates, by the way. Another little tidbit there to show how stellar I was at any of this.

“And even once she made it in, even once I had her tested and discovered she literally—not figuratively, there was a pretty sizable crater afterwards—broke the scale we used to measure magical prowess, I didn’t tell her anything, or Cadance for that matter. Because what else would I have done, tell them the truth? Tell a teenaged saint-in-training and a proverbial bookworm about as big as a literal one that ‘personal student of Celestia’ was secret code for ‘hoof-selected Princesses set to inherit the entire kingdom if and likely when I finally kicked it’?

“Because oh yeah, that was another thing I’d have to toss it into the mix: ‘Hey kiddos! Dinner’s at seven, the fate of the entire planet rests in your prepubescent hooves, and also, I’m gonna die someday! Me, your immortal everlasting Princess that nopony anywhere has even the vaguest conception of living without! And it’s probably gonna be really sudden, you probably won’t be prepared for it at all when it happens, and it’s probably gonna suck! Hope that sounds fun!’

“No. Stars above, no. The less they knew, the better. And the less I had to tell them, the less likely I’d be to get attached to them, to see them just as ponies instead of the paragons of our species I needed them to become. Which I genuinely convinced myself was true because a) I’m a self-effacing, egomaniacal basket case who’s been in over her head for longer than anything else in Equestria was ever even alive, and b) I’m also an idiot.

“Because, if that weren’t enough, this whole thing today? The whole ancient prophecy, stars aiding in her escape, eternal nightmarish night debacle? That’s my fault too. My fault it happened in the first place when I panicked and brute-forced the most powerful artifacts known to ponykind into banishing my only sister to the moon for a thousand years. My fault that out of some selfish desire to forget it ever happened I let ponies think it was all made up, instead of preparing anypony for the absolute certainty that it wasn’t.

“And my fault that, instead of dealing with the problem myself like, y’know, a leader would, I figured, “Hey, what if Twilight did it instead? What if I treat the end of the freaking world like the midterm exam for her how-to-become-a-demigod lifetime-long seminar, and spend years digging up ponies who’d be such good friends with her that there’s no way they wouldn’t restore the Elements the way they’re supposed to be used together, even though she already has best friends who I would’ve known about if I was anypony worth even looking down at in pity, let alone up to as a Princess or a mother or anything worth living for!

“... I think I deserve this. Everything that happened today. Nopony else does, but I do. For being so cocksure, so disgustedly confident that I’d figured everything out. Because I didn’t, did I? I didn’t know anything, now or then or flipping ever. All I knew was the truth about myself, that I’m no Princess at all, that behind all the regalia and the lying and the giant stars-awful throne I’m just a scared little foal with no family and no plan who makes this up as she goes along and ruins everything she touches.

“And now… what am I doing now? Wasting time. Talking again. Because there is no Plan. There never was. Just a stupid idea from a stupid mare, trying to get someone to do her job for her. And that’s all there is to it.”

Celestia finished with a shuddering sigh, the closest thing to a sob she’d allow herself to emit. She wiped her eyes and stared at the sun, watching it inch ever closer to sinking beneath the horizon. How long did they have now before it set? An hour, maybe? Half that time? How long before it would ever rise again, because of the foolish arrogance of one pathetic pony?

A tiny cough caught her attention, dragged her consciousness back from the abyss so it could hear what the mare beside her said next. “That’s… wow,” Blue One whispered, her face tensed up as she struggled to process everything her Princess had just vomited all over her. “I just wanted to know if you wanted some more tea, but… I never knew any of that before. Of all ponies, why’d you tell me?”

For a good while, Celestia didn’t even have a non-answer to dismiss her with. “I don’t know,” she finally replied. “I guess I just needed to tell somepony.”

“I’ll say!” Blue One giggled, sticking her hoof out to give Celestia a playful jab in the side. “Of all the ponies I’ve ever met, you need a vacation the most, your Highness! And, to be perfectly honest, probably a therapist. Like, seriously, I don’t think I’m qualified to handle… any of that.”

Despite herself, Celestia couldn’t help but grin. Mired as she was in her pitch-black mood—the darkest she’d felt in two hundred years—the little unicorn’s blunt honesty was just about the funniest thing she’d heard all day.

“But you wanna know what I do think?” the little unicorn continued, her prodding hoof dipping to take hold of Celestia’s limp one. “I think you’re a lot smarter than you think you are, and a lot better of a Princess than you let yourself believe. I don’t know many ponies anywhere who’d try to do so much for even one other pony, let alone everypony everywhere. And doing everything you do for us even though you’re scared and you’re not sure whether any of it’s right… well, I think that’s the bravest thing I’ve ever heard of. And, for what it’s worth, probably the most selfless too.”

Well, great. After all that talk, all that stress and worry and concussive shock syndrome, and NOW is when the waterworks start. Fine. Whatever. It’s probably cathartic or something.

“That’s… thank you,” Celestia managed to croak as she took the little mare’s hoof in her own. “For the nicest thing anypony’s ever said to me.”

An impish grin split Blue One’s face. “Well, geez, Princess Celestia, now you’re gonna give me an ego.”

“Don’t count on it,” Celestia parried back, her hoof pulling double duty drying her eyes and hiding her smirk. “Mine’s plenty big enough for the two of us…”

A sudden realization struck Celestia mute for a moment, then filled her face with heat. “Actually, can I be honest with you one last time?” she said. “I have no idea what your name is, and I’ve just been calling you ‘Blue One’ this whole time. I’m so sorry. Please introduce herself.”

Blue One laughed—sun-moon-and-stars, what a sweet, melodic sound. “I’m Minuette,” she said, “and don’t worry about the nickname. My mom calls me ‘Minnie’. That’s way worse.”

“Noted,” Celestia said, turning back to the skyline as the gears in her mind began to turn. Half an hour to sunset, maybe twice that. There wasn’t much time left, but maybe there was still enough.

“Your secrets are safe with me, by the way,” Minuette added, an ear-to-ear smile plastered onto her face. “Your new pal Minuette will never tell a soul.”

Celestia looked at her for a moment, cogs still spinning, smirk still lingering on her lips.

“Really,” Minuette added, rocking back and forth on her hooves. “Cross my heart and hope to fly.”

Silently, still smiling, Celestia cocked an eyebrow. Minuette held out for a moment or two, but eventually her face fell with a sigh.

“It was worth a try,” she mumbled sheepishly as Celestia lit her horn.

“Yes,” Celestia agreed. “I think it was.”

===

“Princess Celestia! You–"

“Made it to the party after all,” Celestia finished on Minuette’s behalf. “All right, everypony, gather around. You too, Twilight. This concerns you most of all.”

One by one, Twilight and her five friends shuffled forward to great her, leaving plates covered in six-layer cake crumbs on the twilit table behind them. After all her “Plan” had put them through, Celestia and Raven both figured the girls deserved a treat, and the royal kitchens thankfully had one prepared for the Summer Sun Celebration that hopefully nopony would miss.

“Okay,” Celestia began once they were all met, “this is gonna sound like an odd question, but I promise it’ll be relevant soon: how many of you little ponies have ever been in a fight?”

The six mares shuffled their hooves and murmured amongst themselves, all visibly baffled by the question their Princess had posed them. “I don’t really like confrontation…” Twinkleshine admitted first.

“Yeah, our talents aren’t exactly, um… physical,” Lemonhearts agreed.

“Ooh, ooh!” Minuette interjected, waving her hoof frantically in the air. “I got yelled at by a crossing guard last week! Does that count?”

“As a matter of fact, it just might,” Celestia told her with a smile. A little white lie for a big white horse. Sue me. “Because in approximately three and a half hours, you six are going to be in the biggest one of your lives.”

That got their attention for sure, and not really in a good way. “W-What do you mean?” Lyra asked hesitantly.

“What I mean, Lyra,” Celestia explained, “is that at the stroke of midnight tonight, the apex of the longest day of the thousandth year, Nightmare Moon will escape from her imprisonment in the moon and return to Equestria as foretold by ancient prophecy. Twilight, sit up straight and stick your forelegs straight out in front of you.”

Though still befuddled, Twilight did as she was told. “Like this?” she asked, just as Moondancer’s unconscious form slumped limply over across her outstretched hooves.

“Yes, just like that,” Celestia answered with a nod. “Grab some smelling salts from the box by the punch bowl and come back when she’s awake.” As Twilight awkwardly dragged Moondancer away, Celestia returned to the matter at hoof. “Now then, the best way to defeat Nightmare Moon will be to restore the Elements of Harmony and use their power to purge the Nightmare from her heart. And since there are six Elements to be borne and six friends gathered here right now, I’d say the math and the minutiae both work out perfectly.”

“W-Wait, what?” Lemonhearts exclaimed, her twitching pupils shrunken in their sockets. “You want… us to bear the Elements of Harmony? Why not you? Y-You’re the Princess! We’re just regular old unicorns!”

“Because, Lemonhearts, there are two things I know with absolute certainty,” Celestia said. “The first is that even though I could use the Elements myself, the Elements are not mine to bear, nor are they something to just be used. And second, if there’s one thing today has taught me, it’s that the six of you are no ordinary unicorns.”

Over Twinkleshine’s shoulders, Moondancer began to stir in Twilight’s lap, though Twilight herself seemed to have forgotten she was there. Parting Minuette and Lyra with a gentle hoof, Celestia approached her with her head bowed, stopping to kneel before her once they were close enough to speak in private.

“I’ve asked so much of you, Twilight Sparkle,” she said softly. “More than you know now, and less than you’ve had a right to know for a long time. I did everything I could to make this happen the way I wanted it to, but I can’t force you to be somepony you’re not, and I won’t order you to do something you can’t.

“So I want you to know, despite everything I just said, you don’t have to do this. Just say the word, and I’ll find a way to keep you safe no matter what happens to me, because the third thing I know for sure right now is that there’s nopony else in Equestria I trust more to do the right thing… even if I’m not sure myself what the right thing is.”

Twilight dipped her chin in thought. Celestia raised a hoof as if to rest it on her student’s shoulder, but forced it back down in the end. “It’s your choice, Twilight,” she said. “Can you do this for me? Are you ready?”

A second passed, then two, and when Twilight looked back up, Celestia saw it—in Twilight’s eyes, in her heart, in every fiber of her being. Everything and the only thing Celestia had ever wanted from her. Hope. Determination. Courage. Fire.

“I’m ready,” Twilight said. “We won’t let you down, Princess.”

Celestia nodded and stood, her smile wide enough to hold back her tears. “You could never let me down, Twilight. Even if you tried.”

One by one, Twilight gathered her friends to leave, starting with Moondancer and ending with Minuette, who spent the longest of any of them staring at Celestia as if trying to remember a dream they’d shared together. “There’s a chariot waiting for you all at the landing strip,” Celestia told Twilight. “It’ll take you over the Everfree Forest to the ruins of my old castle. That’s where you’ll find the Elements—and Nightmare Moon.”

“Roger that, your Highness,” Minuette replied with a salute. “Six Equestrian heroes reporting for duty!”

Celestia chuckled to herself and waved as the motley crew made to depart, Moondancer groggily leaning on Twinkleshine’s shoulder for support. Just before the last of their hooves clattered out of the courtyard, though, a murmur of a thought wormed into Celestia’s throat, quickly growing into a shout she couldn’t bear to keep contained.

“Twilight, wait!”

Twilight Sparkle—her student, her deliverer, her little filly no bigger than a bookworm—turned around. “What is it, Princess?” she asked.

Nothing. Everything. What you are to me. What I am to you. Twilight looked half her age in the fading light, like a foal playing dress-up in the costume of a warrior. This was too dangerous, but it was what she was born to do. Celestia couldn’t let this happen, but she had to let her try.

“Just… be careful,” Celestia told her. With a nod and the smallest of smiles, Twilight rounded the corner and vanished from view. The sun set in silence, and Celestia was alone.

Celestia wasn’t sure it was ironic or not, but either way she didn’t remember falling asleep. One minute she was walking into the castle to wait for Twilight’s return, and the next thing she knew her back was sore and the hoofrest on her throne was covered in drool, and the sun was glaring through every window in sight.

The sun.

The sun had risen.

It was morning.

Stars above, the Plan had worked.

Celestia sprinted to the airfield just in time to catch the chariot’s return, along with a sizable crowd of palace staff and passers-by. News had spread overnight—no doubt thanks to Raven—of a group of six extraordinary mares who braved the coming Nightmare and saved all of Equestria from eternal night, and Celestia couldn’t wait to be right there with everypony in Canterlot to greet their returning heroes. And sure enough, that was what they were, just like Minuette had promised.

The chariot’s wheels barely touched down before Twilight hit the ground herself, dodging admirers and adulators alike in her sprint to reach the Princess. Celestia met her halfway and swept her up in her forelegs the moment they crashed together, her heart bright as the solar system and big as the sky. For the first time in centuries, Celestia felt alive, and she had this mare—this amazing, incredible little pony—and her friends to thank for it.

“Oh my gosh, Princess, you won’t believe everything that happened!” Twilight gushed as she finally squirmed her head free. “We did it! We got the Elements, we stopped Nightmare Moon… we even saved Luna! She’s on the next chariot… we tried to fit her in ours, but it just wouldn’t–"

Celestia squeezed even tighter until Twilight relented. Brilliant thought she was, the girl did have a tendency to inadvertently ruin moments. “You did wonderfully, Twilight,” Celestia hiccuped. “I’m so proud of you.”

“Well,” Twilight squeaked, taking a moment to gasp once Celestia relaxed her grip. “It’s not like I didn’t have help…”

Indeed she hadn’t, and Celestia knew just what to do with them. A parade seemed in order, followed by a gala, followed by… well, whatever everyone wanted to do next. She’d tried to plan out every detail of this before, and look how that turned out. Things were better this way, just happening the way they happened. With Equestria saved, Twilight happy, and her friends all there to support her, who could possibly ruin this mo—

Wait.

“I gotta say, Princess, you really knew what you were doing,” Twilight said. “Turns out, we all matched up with the Elements perfectly!”

Wait wait wait WAIT.

“We couldn’t have done it without Lyra’s Honesty, Twinkleshine’s Kindness, Lemonhearts’ Generosity, or Minuette’s Laughter… and in the end, Moondancer and I came through for each other as well.”

She’s… you’re…

“I guess it was a good idea to go to that party instead of the landing strip yesterday,” Twilight said, puffing out her chest to show off the shiny, gemstone-studded necklace hanging around her neck. “Seeing as I am the Element of Loyalty now and all.”

Which means…

Exactly what it looked like it meant. At the center of Twilight’s circle of friends, just now stepping off the chariot to squint into the cheering throng surrounding, Moondancer—the Element of Magic—sidled into view, a golden diadem set with a brilliant pink gemstone perched atop her head.

“Come to think of it, it makes total sense,” Minuette said, slinging a foreleg around Moondancer’s shoulders as the pale mare began to blush from all the attention. “After all, you were the one who brought us all together at the party, and you’re the one who made all of our friendships stronger. Without you, none of this would’ve happened, and we never would’ve… uh, Princess? You okay?”

Yes. Celestia was fine. Everything was perfectly, totally fine. The pony she’d chosen as her secret successor—the mare she’d trained from fillyhood to be the leader Equestria deserved—didn’t even head up her first big adventure, instead ceding that authority to a crippling introvert with the intestinal fortitude of a fainting goat, but other than that? Everything was excellent. Just fantastic. Peachy freaking keen.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Twilight answered for her. “After all, I’m sure she planned for all of this.”

As her crowd roared around her, Celestia’s eye began to twitch.

Epilogue

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