By the time Luna returned to Canterlot, her sister's Day Court had finished for the morning, and Celestia was now taking a well-deserved break from the constant pestering of the Canterlot Elite.

While it was annoying enough on a good day, Celestia's legendary patience was beginning to wear thin on one subject in particular. Chancellor Neighsay had once again come in demanding she close down the School of Friendship.

There were just two problems with that. No matter what he thought otherwise.

Even if Princess Celestia or Princess Luna wanted to close down the school (which they did not), there was no law that prohibited what the school was doing. And as she had said repeatedly, laws of the realm superceeded what the Equestria Education Administration held.

No law had ever been passed banning other races from joining in Equestria's schools for a very simple reason. Nopony had ever thought it was possible it could ever happen.

Even Celestia herself would admit she had never thought it would happen.

And as Celestia was also quick to remind Neighsay, his recent actions with the false Friendship University had put his role as leader of the E.E.A. up for debate in several weeks. And if rumors were to be true, he was on the way out as it was.

As it turned out, Friendship University had never come up for a vote by the Board of Trustees. In fact, Neighsay had fast-tracked it through the accreditation process, bypassing any and all due process that would have caught Flim and Flam's scam.

What little goodwill he had left had evaporated when the news of that had come out. Even those on the Board who agreed with him were now backing out.

Despite all that, however, he was still Chancellor and still held some power. But no longer near as what he once did. Celestia often wondered what had happened that made him this way. She remembered when had been very different from today.

Or maybe he was always like this, and the School of Friendship had only brought it to the surface.

But that was all beside the point. Celestia was far more worried about what Luna had told her of Cozy Glow earlier that morning. When Luna had mentioned the use of Elder Magic, her worries had shot through the roof.

She had despatched a Royal Guard company to make sure Tirek was still safely locked away in Tartarus where he belonged. Finding Chrysalis would be harder, but the former queen no longer was the danger she once was.

She would be having words with Discord when she had the chance about his taking on Grogar's role. The old goat was long dead thanks to Gusty, and a little bit of otherworldly help to make sure he stayed dead. His Bewitching Bell was locked away in a place only Gusty had known of.

What worried her the most though was Cozy herself. Celestia had known the matron of Tall Tale's orphanage personally, and never once had she mentioned anything like this. It seemed the danger had passed though. She hoped so at least.

But what really interested her though was one bit of Cozy's dream. One that involved her and Luna in a big way. One that also involved Twilight. An idea she had honestly never thought of herself.

But now that she had heard about it, the idea would not leave her alone. And the more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea, and she knew Luna did as well, though maybe not as much.

There had never been an occasion really when either of them had thought of retiring and hoofing off their duties to another. Some times Celestia had given temporary rulership over to Princess Cadance when she had been younger. But that had only really been for a short time.

And as much as Celestia loved her niece, she had always known that raising the sun and moon were not something that lay in her future, though given the right instruction, Cadance was more than capable of doing both.

Unicorns had once moved both celestial bodies before the founding of Equestria. Starswirl himself had once helped move both and was, in fact, the only unicorn whose magic wasn't depleted forever after a certain amount of times of doing so.

Despite what some thought though, Celestia's cutie mark did not mean she was some sort of sun goddess or avatar of the sun. The same holds for Luna and the moon. If they truly wanted to give their celestial duties to another, they could.

Of course, it would not be easy for them to do of course. But Celestia wondered why she would ever half-ass something to Twilight like that with the Great Wheel. Twilight had once moved both sun and moon when Tirek had first returned.

It hadn't been perfect of course. But given time and the right instruction from both her and Luna, Twilight was more than capable of doing so again. Maybe even better than the Royal Sisters themselves.

Celestia would have to think long and hard about this. This was not something they could just do at the drop of a hat. Too many things risked going wrong if they did.

Author's Note

Just to be perfectly clear. Never once in her talk with Twilight did Luna ever mention anything about her and Celestia retiring. I know it was an open question before.

Now you know. With that said though, this is more of an interlude chapter for the story. We'll get back to the main part of the story next chapter.