No Country for Old Princesses
Not-So-Bloodless Transfer of Power
"You want me to what?"
"Kill me, yes."
After Celestia's announcement of her intent to retire, she and Twilight had retreated to a private room for a more detailed discussion. The contents of which were turning out to be wildly different from what Twilight had been expecting.
"S-Surely you can't be serious?!" Twilight stammered. "I thought you just wanted to retire, not die!"
Celestia laughed lightly. "A princess can't just retire. That's ridiculous. Why, I can think of at least twelve political entities off the top of my head that would go into an uproar. No, there's no way out of this position unless I die. Besides, I've lived a long, full life and I think I'm just about done."
"But why me?" Twilight pressed, "Why would you want me to kill you?"
The Princess of the Sun shrugged. "Only an alicorn can kill an alicorn. Don't ask me why, that's just how it is. Nature can be cruel."
Twilight took a few deep breaths to slow her hyperventilating before she collapsed. Steeling her resolve, she matched her gaze to her mentor's. "No. I'm not going to kill you."
"Oh come on. Please?" The princess pouted with a tone far too light for the heavy subject matter, at least in Twilight's opinion. She laid down and rested her head at Twilight's hooves. "Just pretend I'm one of your villains and the Elements of Harmony aren't working. A quick one-two to the back of the skull and you're done. No fuss, no mess, and you're the new solar princess. We'll call it an accident, or maybe natural causes."
"Murder is not a natural cause," Twilight rebuffed.
"It is when you're a princess. Now, less talking, more stomping. These vertebrae aren't going to pop themselves. Imagine they're bubblewrap."
Twilight rolled her eyes. Having summitted the peak of surprise she had now settled into the plateau of disbelief. "I'm not going to kill you, Princess. This is ridiculous."
"No it isn't. Come on, don't leave me hanging. Or rather do leave me hanging. I taught you the Ghostly Noose spell didn't I?
Twilight blanched. "You... you said that spell was just for hanging decorative gourds! No wonder no one asks for candy from the castle on Nightmare Night."
"If we could get back on topic..."
"No," Twilight said firmly, "We absolutely cannot. You're being ridiculous. I’m leaving." With a definitive air of finality, the younger princess turned and left the room, slamming the door behind her.
"Yes!" Celestia shouted back at her. "Very ridiculous! I'm basically senile already! It'd be a mercy kil-... aaaand she's gone." She rose and cracked her neck where she'd slammed it on the floor. "This is going to be trickier than I anticipated."
Twilight was enjoying a leisurely lunch in her castle. After her friends' reassurances, she was feeling much better about the whole 'becoming the highest authority in the nation' situation. Though concern over Celestia's odd behavior afterward still festered away in the back of her mind. Had it been a joke? A test? Discord in disguise? But there was no way to know and, as such, she put the matter aside.
That is, until she took her dirty dishes back to the kitchen and found Princess Celestia there, lying prone on the breakfast counter with a lily clutched to her chest. At the sound of Twilight's dishes dropping to the floor in shock, the seemingly comatose princess opened one eye.
"Tempting, isn't it?"
Twilight was at a loss for words.
"This could be your reality. All you have to do is take any of the plentiful sharp or blunt objects in this room and apply it liberally to my general everything."
Twilight frowned. What had once been a shock had become disbelief, and now disbelief had degenerated further into annoyance. Not to mention that there had been a second serving of lunch on the counter which was now conspicuously absent.
"Celestia, I can't just go and kill you with some cooking tools."
Celestia pondered that. "Hm. Good point. It does lack a certain... gravitas. But don't worry, I came prepared. " In a flash of golden light, an ornate sword appeared in the air then unceremoniously clattered to the floor. "There you go. A sword fit to cut the neck of a royal. Now have at me."
"I don't think-" Twilight managed before being interrupted,
"Sword not to your tastes? That's fine; I have more." Countless additional bursts of golden starlight brought more weapons into existence, each more ornate than the last. The princess named then as they fell. "Would you prefer a broadsword? Shortsword? Dagger? Spear? Pike? Halberd? War axe? Flail? Mace? Mace and flail? Cudgel? Crossbow? Enchanted teapot?"
It's not-" Twilight had to raise her voice to be heard over the clatter of metal, "It's not the type of weapon that's the issue here."
Celestia ceased her rain of swords. "Oh I see. Squeamish are you? Well there's plenty of less bloody ways if you prefer. I know a few dark spells that could get the job done. Grasp Heart is a classic. I could teach it to you. How does that sound? A bit of exclusive knowledge and a willing subject to test it on to boot! You're not going to get a deal much better than that!"
Beneath furrowed brows, Twilight's eye had begun to twitch. Just because her friends had reassured her certainly did not mean that she was a stress-free pony, and her teacher's continued... oddness was not at all helping. "I don't know if this is meant to be a joke or-"
"It's not."
"-or whatever, but I'm starting to get a bit frustrated."
"Yes! Do that!" Celestia cried, suddenly brimming with encouragement. "Get mad, get murderously mad! Think of everything I've put you through; all the trials and tribulations that I could have easily handled on my own, yet instead made you and your friends struggle through! Then take me out behind the tool shed and vent your frustrations with a shovel on my unresisting body. I'll even provide the shovel for you!"
A shovel, ordinary and unadorned, popped into existence atop the pile of legendary weaponry.
"Then when I'm good and dead you can suckle the remaining magic from my horn and step right into my horseshoes. Well, you'll have to pry them off my cold dead hooves first, though that shouldn't be much of an issue. And you should only wear them until you can get some custom ones made for yourself. Luna can point you to a good smithy in Canterlot."
"I-" Twilight started, but was yet again cut off before she could voice her complaint.
"Oh! And you can't forget the great incentive that'll happen next!"
"..What?"
"You get to plan my funeral! Oh, can you imagine just how much fun that will be? So many things to schedule and organize! And your friends can help too. Applejack can cater. Pinkie Pie can organize the wake. Rarity can design some eye-catching mourning dresses for you all and a fetching burial gown for me. Rainbow Dash can do her Rainboom, of course. And Fluttershy... well, I'm sure she'll find something to do."
"My friends would never agree to that!" Twilight said, aghast.
"I don't know, Twilight," Pinkie commented as her head popped out from within Celestia's rainbow mane, "She's really starting to sell me on this."
"See? The pink one agrees."
Something began to grow in the back of Twilight's throat. A wordless growl of repressed frustrations and compounding headache fuel. A low rumble of it started to escape out her mouth before she clamped it shut. "Nope. No. Not entertaining this nonsense any longer." She spun on her hooves and marched back out the way she came without a second glance.
Celestia twisted her neck in a way that would have broken anyone else's to face her unexpected passenger. "Sorry Pinkie, better put that death day cake back on ice."
Pinkie just shrugged and smiled. "Don't worry, it's good for another few years. I baked it with some wiggle room in mind just in case my Pinkie Sense was off about the date."
"Oh no, whatever will I do?" Celestia moaned plaintively as green and black vines, some as thick as a foreleg, circled and ensnared every free joint of her body, immobilizing her completely. "Here am I, trapped, bound and helpless. Why, if anyone was to come and kill me right now, I'd have absolutely no way to stop them."
"You can stop now," Luna informed dryly as she lasered another swatch through the rampaging forest, "Twilight left already."
"Did she? Phooey." Celestia flexed and every vine constricting her body exploded at once into a smear of green goo. "That mare doesn't know a perfect opportunity when it's staring her in the face."
Starswirl shook his head as he continued to cut a bloody botanical path through his own patch of forest. "A thousand years," he muttered, "A thousand years and they haven't gotten an ounce saner."
"I'm so glad that you were able to sort out this mess with Sombra, Twilight. I knew you could do it," Celestia praised. With the day's adventure behind them, the pair had retreated to a side room in the castle; the same room in which Celestia had first asked Twilight to kill her.
"And I'm glad," Twilight replied, "That you've decided to delay your retirement. I was not ready to take over."
"Yes," the solar princess mused, "Maybe I was being a bit too hasty with my plans. Still, in any event Luna was likely to stick around, at least in an advisory position. I think she feels a little cheated out of a thousand years of ruling. And I suppose I should stick around for the time being as well. At least until you are confident in your own abilities as a leader. Could you pass some butter? This muffin is rather dry."
Lacing a knife with the requested creamy topping, Twilight passed it with her magic. Suddenly, she found herself struck with an unexpected magic surge, as though power was flooding into her from some unknown, yet warm, source. The knife whipped through the air, far faster than she had intended.
A pair of gasps filled the room in perfect chorus, and then silence.
And then Celestia's head fell, expressionless, to the floor.
After a moment, it resolved itself into a frustrated pout. "Oh fiddlesticks," the disembodied head swore, "I guess ascended alicorns don't count."
Twilight's jaw dropped practically as far as Celestia's had. She stared in awe at the living flames which frothed and surged from the severed stump of a neck like red and yellow snakes.
"Well so much for that plan," the headless horse mare mused as she levitated her head back into place, the sliced edge sealing itself shut with no sign of effort. "But it does open some new possibilities. Say Twilight? Do you know when Flurry Heart's nap time is? If I'm lucky, a firecracker at just the right moment might net me the kind of raw destructive blast I'm looking for."
