Diamond Ponies Aren't Forever
The fire kept the Canterlot winter at bay as Lapis Lazuli lay by the fireplace and stared into the flames. Individual tongues of fire appeared and disappeared, and more quickly than the colored leaves had done in the months prior. He glanced out the window and saw the barren tree in the front yard swaying in the wind and snow.
Shivering, he tucked his legs and tail a little closer as he leaned towards the fire. He turned his head when he heard hoofsteps behind him. “I made us hot cocoa,” said Fluorite as she approached.
Lapis eagerly accepted the mug from Fluorite’s outstretched hoof. “Thanks, love.” He sipped and swallowed, and felt momentarily warm.
Fluorite lay down next to him and leaned against his neck, then sighed contentedly. “What a year,” she said, reminiscing.
Lapis’s ears fell as he stared back at the fire. “Yeah.”
He felt Fluorite raise her head. “I meant for us.” Lapis Lazuli cast a sidelong glance at the gemstone in the middle of her necklace—his namesake. Before he realized what was happening, he caught himself starting to smile. He turned his gaze back to the fire, then allowed the feeble feeling to fade. “You remember our first trip to Canterlot, don’t you?” she continued. “For the Summer Sun Celebration?”
“How could I forget?” he answered. And he hadn’t; every detail was vivid in his memory, set like the stones in her jewelry. The trip south had filed him with with suspense and anticipation. Fluorite never suspected that the trip was for anything besides the festival. An afternoon spent among the Canterlot shops with the other crystal stallions travelling with them gave him the perfect excuse to slip into the jeweler's shop. From there, events followed even more quickly. The early morning walk, the secluded gazebo, the bended knee and passionate embrace that followed; though he got off the train with his marefriend, he embarked with his fiancée. He remembered feeling nothing but joy. But then, when their return trip was interrupted…
“But the Empire...” he said, continuing the thought his memories had begun.
“I know.” Fluorite paused, and for a moment the only sound was the crackling of the fire. “You know, I heard there’ll be another Summer Sun Celebration next year. They’re going to make it an annual event. The day will be more special for us,” she said. He turned his head and gazed into her crystal eyes, vivid blue gems that shimmed purple and teal where the light fell on them. The fire reflected in her eyes, displaying dancing patterns of white and yellow.
Almost before he could react, she leaned in and gave him a brief kiss. She then drew back and licked her lips. “Mmm. Cocoa kiss.”
Lapis smiled and licked his own lips before lowering his head to his mug. When he raised his head, Fluorite laid her head on his forelegs and cozied the back of her head against his chest. Lapis smiled and laid his head down on top of hers.
After several moments and a few subtle adjustments between the pair, he heard what sounded like a knock at the door. He frowned and raised his ears, and raised his head when he felt Fluorite pulling away. “Was that—” he asked, though the reflection of his own confusion in her face was answer enough.
“Who could that be?” she asked.
He first turned his head, then rose and went to the front door. A quick peek through the peephole revealed a tall white mare wearing a winter coat, a winter hat atop her pink hair. He unlocked and opened the door, inviting in the winter wind, but standing between the stranger and the warmth. “Hello?” he said after a pause.
“I know you don’t know me,” the mare began, “but all the inns and the trains out of town are booked. I’ve no place to stay the night, and no relatives to board with. Would you—take me in for the night?”
Lapis contemplated for several seconds. “Y-yes. Of course.” He stepped aside and ushered her inside with a gesture from his hoof. “Come. Join us by the fire,” he invited.
Fluorite’s eyes met them as they entered the living room. “Who is this?”
“Fluorite, this is—” he paused when he realized he hadn’t asked the mare’s name.
“M-my name is G-Golden Ray,” she answered, shivering. Lapis hadn’t noticed her shivering a moment ago.
“She’s our guest,” he added.
Fluorite perked up at that last word. She stood up and began walking towards the mare. “Here. Let me take your coat.”
Golden raised a hoof to her coat and pulled it tight against her barrel. “I should like to keep it on a bit longer. It was—quite cold on the street.”
Fluorite paused, hoof still in the air. After a moment’s contemplation, she nodded and began to head for the kitchen. “Would you care for some cocoa?”
“If you would, please,” came the reply.
As Fluorite left the room, Lapis approached the fireplace. He lay down and followed Golden’s gaze around the room. She took particular interest in the Hearth’s Warming decorations the couple had set up. She investigated the tree first, then the windows with their lights and wreath. She approached the mantle with the hearth’s warming dolls, then glanced back at Lapis, then into the kitchen, as if comparing the dolls with their owners. She looked back at the dolls and smiled.
Her observation complete, she moved on to the other decorations on the mantle: a crystal and a pair of candles. Fluorite entered with a mug of cocoa, which Golden accepted in her magic. “What is the meaning of the candles and the crystal?” she asked
Lapis sighed as he stood and joined her by the mantle. “My fiancée and I are crystal ponies.”
Golden nodded, her face expressionless.
Fluorite approached and stood next to him.
“If we had been there during the coup, we’d probably be… where the rest of the Empire is now.” He shook his head. “The candles—are for our vigil.”
Golden slowly took a step back, mouth agape. She closed her eyes and bowed her head, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her coat. “A vigil through the—the night...” She turned her head to face him. “Forgive my deceit. I knew you were crystal ponies, and I came here because… I understand. My sister—won’t be with me this Hearth’s Warming. I just wanted you to—” She sniffed again, then began to cry.
Fluorite moved from Lapis’s side and stood on the other side of Golden. She raised a foreleg and pulled Golden into a hug. Somewhat abruptly, she turned her head and looked at Golden’s back, then at her side. Golden looked back at her, and the pair made eye contact. As Fluorite stepped back in shock, Golden glanced over at Lapis, and he saw something almost mischievous in her eyes. Though she had just been crying, she seemed to be fighting against a sly little smile that was trying to find a place on her face.
“I don’t understand,” said Lapis.
“Perhaps this will help clear things up.” Golden lit her horn and unbuttoned her coat as she turned around to face them. She levitated the winter coat off her back, and spread a pair of large white wings.
Lapis and Fluorite gasped. “Princess!” he exclaimed.
“Happy Hearth’s Warming,” she said as she drew the pair into an embrace. “Your holiday will not be spent alone.” Lapis accepted her embrace. “And thanks to your hospitality, neither shall mine.”
Lapis held Fluorite’s hoof as they walked through doors which were taller than their house, into the next hall of the Princess’s castle. Around her hooves, Fluorite now wore bracelets which matched her engagement necklace, a symbol of the couple’s recent marriage. Lapis wore his best suit, and Fluorite her finest dress—which, being three and a half months pregnant, she had barely gotten into. Within the hall were perhaps a dozen other ponies. A door on each side led to another hall, each of which Lapis guessed had a similar number of ponies.
And on the first landing in the staircase before them stood Princess Celestia herself.
When she saw them she did not wait, but descended from the landing and met them at the foot of the stairs. The couple bowed, and Celestia smiled warmly at them. “Welcome, Lapis Lazuli and Fluorite.” She stepped aside and gestured for them to ascend the stairs, then turned and walked with them. At the top, they found a very tall candle set on a pedestal, and beside it on either side were shorter, wider candles set on shorter pedestals. Most had already been lit, but a few had not.
The Princess levitated the tall candlestick towards the pair, and Lapis took it with a hoof. “Please, light one of these candles with yours.”
As Lapis lit a candle, Fluorite asked, “What for, Your Highness?”
“For our vigil,” Celestia said, a not-quite-sly smile on her face. “Happy Hearth’s Warming, Lapis, Fluorite,” she said as she took the candlestick in her magic and drew the pair into an embrace.
As Celestia embraced him, Lapis closed his eyes and tried not to cry, but the sense of pride in his spirit quickly got the better of him. His lip quivered, as did his breath, and his vision blurred with tears.
Fluorite was not holding her emotions in any better. In fact, she was all but leaning on the Princess for support, and was softly crying aloud.
Celestia chuckled. “My little ponies,” she began. She paused and drew out of her embrace. “Well, not mine, but…”
Lapis lifted a foreleg, and bowed his head. “We would gladly accept you as our Princess, Your Highness.”
“My little ponies,” she repeated. Lapis raised his head. “You gave me this vigil, but I also hold another. I observe this vigil for the Crystal Empire on Hearth’s Warming Eve, and I observe a vigil on the eve of the Summer Sun Celebration. For—my sister.” Celestia’s countenance fell, and her ears dropped back against her head.
“Princess, you changed the Summer Sun Celebration this year,” said Fluorite. “Your declaration said that ponies should stay up all night to wait for the sun. Were we really waiting for the sun?”
“Or were we waiting with you?” asked Lapis
“I—can’t ask you to wait with me,” she said somberly. “You’ll miss it. Just like you’ll miss the end of your own vigil.” Then she straightened her posture and spread her wings, and Lapis couldn’t help but notice how regal she looked. “But I will not. This I solemnly swear. I will look after you, and your kind, and your children. You shall be as my very own ponies to me.”
The sense of pride he had felt a moment ago returned in force, and he almost couldn’t find the breath to thank the Princess. The words came out so quietly, he was afraid she wouldn’t hear them.
But Celestia nodded in acknowledgement, then gestured with a foreleg towards the hall at the foot of the stairs. Suddenly, Lapis noticed that here in the heart of Canterlot, there were no unicorns. And he suspected the ponies within the hall were not earth ponies, either. “How many are there?” he asked.
“Thirty-three,” she replied. “Most of them I found in pairs.”
“And all crystal ponies?” asked Fluorite.
“All of them.”
Lapis smiled, but felt a pang in his chest as the words twisted in his mind into a different meaning. All of them.
When morning came and Celestia raised the sun, the guests each snuffed their candle. Once they had left, Celestia took the tallest candle into a separate room, its flame not yet put out. She inspected the wick, and found it no shorter than when the night had begun. She inspected the sides and base of the candle, and found no melted wax. She nodded her approval, then set it down on a pedestal next to the tall purple crystal which powered its enchantment spell. The magic artifact was no mere organic magician, and would keep the flame lit until the next Hearth’s Warming Eve, provided she could keep it safe. Content with her work, Celestia exited the room and shut the door.
From the start it was clear to Celestia that the crystal ponies weren’t quite unicorns, and they weren’t quite earth ponies. And they definitely weren’t pegasi. They were their own distinct race. Yet as the centuries wore on, their culture slowly conformed to that of the unicorns who lived in cities like Canterlot, or that of the earth ponies who lived in rural regions like Fillydelphia. They stubbornly held on for many years, much longer than Celestia expected they would. But by the end of three and a half centuries of mingling culture and intermarrying, the crystal ponies were, for all practical purposes, extinct, having been both racially and culturally absorbed into Equestria.
But not to Celestia. Every once in a great while, a pony would strike her as oddly… different. Almost crystal. When she noticed such oddities as an earth pony who had an affinity towards growing crystals, or a unicorn who used gems in an unusual occupation or artistic manner, she would smile to herself. But often when she smiled, she would remember the reason ponies like that stood out, and her smile would slip into a somber frown.
Every Hearth’s Warming Eve, Celestia observed the Crystal Vigil, and every Summer Sun’s Eve, she observed the Lunar Vigil. For almost a millennium, Celestia faithfully observed both vigils each year, missing less than fifteen of the near two thousand of them. Till one night, during the Lunar Vigil—and according to her careful timekeeping—her sister returned.
The next event on her carefully-measured calender would not take place until three months and a week later. Celestia went about her day as usual, though she was constantly expecting news from her guards.
It was just before eleven o’clock when the news arrived. Raven Inkwell was holding a stack of paperwork for her to sign off on when the throne room doors burst open and a guard galloped up to the foot of her throne. “News from northern Equestria!” he began. Celestia waved her hoof, and Raven withdrew, and the guard removed his helmet.
“Yes?” she answered. Though she was certain she knew the answer already.
“I am simply to inform you that, it has returned.”
Celestia faked a gasp as she turned to the guard to her right. She barely paused, having already thought through what to tell him. “Find Princess Cadance and Shining Armor.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” came the reply.
She levitated a scroll and a quill, and hastily wrote a letter to Twilight, requesting her immediate presence in Canterlot. Writing the letter bought her enough time for the guards to leave the throne room.
Once the letter was sent, she rose from her throne and left the room. Her long legs and swift pace carried her through the palace with haste until she arrived at a door engraved with many different gemstones. She paused, laid her ears against her head, then opened the door and entered.
The room was more like a shrine than a royal vault. As she walked through, she took the time to notice each item on each pedestal along the way. Here a necklace, there a pair of earrings; here a set of bracelets, there a goblet. She counted about twenty small pedestals in total.
At the end, just beyond the necklace and bracelets of silver set with lapis lazuli stood a pair of taller pedestals. The first held the crystalling gem of the late Crystal Princess—a thin pink gemstone much taller than it was wide. The second pedestal held an enchanted candle, which burned but did not consume its wick or melt its wax.
Celestia stared at the flickering flame for a moment, then turned her back to it and gazed out upon the shorter pedestals. “My dear crystal ponies,” she began, “you were not mine, but you sought refuge in my nation and among my ponies, and we accepted you.” She turned to the nearest pedestal. “Lapiz, Fluorite, you have given me this vigil, and I have accepted it. I now hold this vigil complete.” A smile slipped onto her lips. “Your home has returned.”
For a moment longer, she smiled at the blue stones, and the gold within them shimmered as she moved her head.
Then she turned and faced the candle, and with her magic, snuffed it out.
