Alicorn Biology: Princess Celestia

Lyra’s jaw hung open. Then she burst out laughing. Bon Bon and Celestia shared an uncomfortable glance.

“Oh, that’s a great one, Bonnie!” She wiped away a tear with her hoof. “I knew you had to get back at me somehow, but I would never have expected you to say anything like this!“ She chuckled. “Wow, you are really good at putting on an act! I almost believed you for a sec!“

“Lyra…” Bon Bon’s tone was firm. “I’m dead serious. I’m joining Princess Celestia’s harem.”

This was getting beyond the limits of a joke in good taste. Lyra’s eyes narrowed in anger.

“What? That’s ridiculous! That’s absurd!! Celestia doesn’t have a harem! That’s…”

Lyra was at a loss. She had always known that Bon Bon held a lot of Low Celestian beliefs, but never thought of her any less for it despite her own unflinchingly High Celestian background. She didn’t mind the cake altar in their bedroom, and it was actually kind of cute how Bon Bon would say grace before orgasm (Lyra had even taken it as a fun challenge to stimulate her enough so that she would forget to). But belief in a Celestian harem? Was Bon Bon really one of those ponies?

“Sorry, Bonnie. I just have a hard time believing somepony as sensible as you believes in that nonsense about Princess Molestia-“

“Lyra!” Bon Bon interrupted angrily. “I’m not some sort of swamp pony! It’s obvious to anypony with a brain that Celestia doesn’t keep dozens of mares locked away in underground dungeons or… or… teleports around Equestria relieving Herself using unaware ponies, or anything like that! That would be blasphemy!“

It struck Lyra that Bon Bon was using the same tone Lyra’s mother had often used to talk about her.

“My family are Minimalists! We believe that ever since the closing of the Convent, She has only had one concubine at a time, hidden behind an official position, just enough to satisfy Her needs.”

Lyra was taken aback by her certainty.

“Oh. So you believe the Celestian Convent was actually her harem?”

“Yes! Those mares were Her concubines!”

Lyra was about to retort, but she held it back.

Well, if you had gone to the School for Gifted Unicorns, you would have learned this on the first day of Early Celestian History, but…

She hated herself for that instinct. Instead, she began with the next sentence, her voice defaulting to the calm tone she had absorbed from her years of listening to her teachers’ lectures.

“Bon Bon, that’s a false interpretation of the nature of the Celestian Convent. They left their families and renounced future sexual and romantic relationships with ponies outside of the Convent in order to ensure their loyalty to the early Celestian state, not because they were her harem.“

Her grades were bad mostly due to the magic classes; she was always good at history.

She pushed further. “And this belief that Celestia dissolved her harem and started to have concubines secretly right around the time when written daily records started being preserved and pony literacy became commonplace is awfully convenient. That just makes it an unprovable matter of faith! The ‘harem of the gaps’!“ The phrase had always stuck with her since Comparative Religious Studies.

“Lyra…” Bon Bon replied gently. “It’s not a matter of faith.” She turned to face Celestia, and Lyra followed suit.

It somehow only then struck Lyra that there was somepony in the room who could clear all of this up very directly. To be fair, Princess Celestia had always refused to confirm or deny details about historical events she had lived through to her students. As Lyra had gotten older and as her questions about the past became more difficult, Celestia’s answer to consult the official histories and historians felt more and more like an impenetrable shield, to the point where she no longer thought of the Princess as even a possible source for such answers.

Even now, she seemed very reluctant to comment, and conflicted in general about the conversation that had just occurred in front of her.

“Your beliefs on this are true, my child,” Celestia confirmed. “The Convent was my harem, and after its dissolution I have always taken only one concubine at a time.”

Bon Bon smiled in vindication, and not just over Lyra, it seemed. Lyra was shocked, though she did not know if the upending of her worldview or the implications of what Bon Bon had said being true affected her more. The creeping sense of horror and dread as it all began to sink in confirmed it was the latter.

“So that’s…” she pointed a shaking hoof at the canopy bed on the other side of the room. “That’s the…”

“That’s the Altar of Consummation,“ Bonnie supplied. Lyra could feel the capital letters in her voice.

“And that’s where…”

“The Ritual of Consummation is done, after the concubine is given away to be sealed to the Goddess.”

“And that is…”

“A mere beam of the light of the Holy Sun, that is reflected in each moment of lovemaking between every pony couple.“

Lyra did not want to think about what that implied for the place their lovemaking held in Bon Bon’s worldview. But then she did, and it was about as painful as she expected.

“Bonnie… I just don’t understand…” Lyra quivered, with betrayal and pain in her voice. “We… we just got married! And now you’re talking about me giving you away? What about our wedding vows!?”

Lyra didn’t know how she expected Bon Bon to react, but what she didn’t expect was for Bon Bon to look back at her with a look of pain and betrayal of her own.

“Lyra…“ she said in the same worried tone of voice as earlier. “Do you actually remember our wedding vows?”

Lyra’s mind raced at this unexpected response, fetching and collating the associated memories at a breakneck pace. The wedding was a traditional one, much to Lyra’s parents’ chagrin. Lyra just wanted Bon Bon to be happy. Bon Bon’s father was delighted, despite the fact that it was so traditional he wasn’t allowed to take the place of her deceased mother in being the best mare: the one to walk Bon Bon halfway down the aisle then give her away, symbolizing her leaving one house and family to join another.

Bon Bon didn’t have any sisters or childhood friends she was still close with, and having her Canterlot cousin in the role would have been, if anything, even more awkward than a complete stranger. So the role had gone to Cherry Berry, Bon Bon’s closest female friend in Ponyville that she wasn’t marrying that day. A mare with whom Bon Bon had lunch with a couple times a moon and had shared many conversations, laughs, and experiences with, but didn’t even know Bon Bon had a dead mother before she was asked to be her best mare. Cherry Berry tried her best to hide it, but it was obvious to all how relieved she was when Bon Bon let go of her hoof and the attention shifted away from her.

Lyra’s mother had let go of her hoof at the same time, as was the custom for two mares getting married. Unlike Cherry Berry, she was very good at hiding her feelings about the whole thing. But nopony at the wedding wasn’t aware of how she disapproved. All in all, that part of the ceremony was very awkward, indeed.

But yes, that’s how traditional the wedding was, up to and including the vows.

Do you, Lyra Heartstrings, take Bon Bon to be your wedded wife by the grace of Celestia, to love her and be devoted to her just as you love and are devoted to Celestia, to join your flesh with hers until the day she is blessed to join the Flesh of the Living Goddess?

“I…”

“What were the last words of the vow, Lyra?”

Until the day she is blessed to join the Flesh of the Living Goddess.

Until.

“I just thought that was a metaphor for `until you died’ or something!”

“What? That doesn’t even make any sense!” Bon Bon stuck a hoof towards Celestia. “The Goddess is right there, do you see a bunch of dead mare corpses attached to Her?”

“I know it doesn’t make sense!” Lyra protested. “I just thought it was an old religious thing! I didn’t think it literally meant anything…”

“Lyra…” Tears were welling up in Bon Bon’s eyes. “Are you saying that our wedding vows didn’t mean anything to you?”

“Of course our wedding vows meant something to me!” Lyra panicked. “To take you to be my wife, to love you and be devoted to you, to join my flesh with yours. That was the important part to me!”

“Well, I meant every part, Lyra!” Bon Bon was crying now. “Every part was important to me!” she sobbed. “I’ve always known! You’re a Canterlot pony, I know all of you see Her differently than ponies like me do. I just thought that… you would at least mean our wedding vows…”

“I… I just…” Lyra began crying as well, squeaking out, “I had no idea it was so literal!”

This was crazy. Was she wrong? How could she possibly be the pony in the wrong here!?

Just then, Lyra felt a calming presence. She looked up to see Celestia towering over Bon Bon, covering her body with a wing. She spoke in a soothing voice.

“Do not be sad, my child. This unfortunate misunderstanding is not Lyra’s or your fault. It is mine.”

Bon Bon looked up at her, blinking through her tears, confused.

Celestia sighed. “It is not only that Lyra grew up in Canterlot. She was a student at my school. I was her teacher. Her principal. I was a mother figure, in a way that was more direct than the role I take on for all of my subjects. Even especially loyal and faithful ponies like you.”

Bon Bon smiled at that.

“So when you told me that Lyra enthusiastically accepted your selection, I admit that I was surprised. I had expected a conversation with her first, or at the very least some questions. But I figured that she must have had them with you, and that she understood fully the import of the selection, and learned to see me in a way that would have been unimaginable to her just a few years ago.“

She turned to Lyra with a look of serenity.

“I must apologize to you, my former student. It has been centuries since I have taken a concubine under similar circumstances, and in my excitement I was not as diligent as I could have been in confirming your enthusiastic consent. Coming close to the end of a reign that has lasted for more than a thousand years, I treasure these rare moments when I discover that I still have important things to learn and ways to grow. I am humbled by the experience, and thankful to you.”

She herself bowed to Lyra, underscoring the point. Knowing that Bon Bon would take in every bit of that significance and weight. Knowing how that would affect how she took in what she said next.

“Bon Bon, you must understand. I cannot allow this to continue without Lyra giving her consent. But she is not depriving you of anything if she does not. She loves you deeply, and you must love her just as deeply, if not more, for my sake. You will still be serving me even if that means continuing to live the life you had in Ponyville, and that it would in no way diminish my love for you or my appreciation for your loyalty and faith.”

Lyra couldn’t believe it. Was she being given an out? A way to just go back to Ponyville with Bon Bon and forget that this whole thing had ever happened?

But no. In her heart of hearts she knew that nothing would ever be the same again. If anything, Celestia’s words underscored it. From then on, behind every caress, every kiss, and every loving whisper there would be a part of Bon Bon that was nothing more than the faithful servant following the orders of her Goddess.

At that point, what difference would it make if she were in Lyra’s bed in Ponyville or Celestia’s in Canterlot?

Bon Bon turned to Lyra, the smile on her lips and the look in her blue eyes the same: sad and sweet.

“Lyra, I’m sorry too. Somewhere deep in the back of my mind, I never wanted to have a direct conversation about what this all meant just in case I would find out that you wouldn’t let me do it.“ Tears were in her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I just wanted to believe that everything would turn out as I had hoped. I wanted to hold on to that faith.“

Lyra sighed deeply.

“Bonnie…” She could not believe that she was going to say it. “I’m not outright refusing this for you. It’s just a lot to take in, and I have a lot of questions.”

“Oh, of course, Lyra.” Bon Bon smiled. “Whatever you want to know. And don’t be afraid to say no to all this in the end if it comes to it, please. We are married under the grace of Celestia. I will love you no matter what.“

Lyra felt pained. “You’ve wanted this for a long time, haven’t you Bonnie?”

“Oh, of course!” Bon Bon’s face relaxed and her eyes went distant as she fell into remembrance. “Ever since I was a filly!” She laughed. “Of course, I was way too young to know what it really meant back then! All I knew is what my parents told me, which is that if I was a good filly who obeyed my parents, loved Celestia, and showed Her my devotion and piety enough, when I’m all grown up I could be chosen to live with Her and be Her special companion. I just thought that meant we would have tea parties together or something!“

Celestia smiled. “I also have tea parties with my concubines.”

Bon Bon blushed and giggled at that, each squeak stabbing Lyra in the heart like a knife.

“Yeah, it was one of those silly foalhood dreams. Like how most other fillies dream of becoming Princesses one day, or how colts dream of becoming royal consorts. Even then, I never would have imagined it actually happening.”

Lyra, indeed, had dreamed of becoming a Princess one day as a filly. But growing up attending Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, becoming a Princess was always something that felt like it was on the edge of the possible rather than an impossibly foalish dream. A feeling that was vindicated by her foalhood friend Twilight actually becoming a Princess a few years ago.

It was not the same for Bon Bon’s upbringing, but the gulf was even wider than that.

Lyra let her mane run wild, as if she were still deliberately defying the Canterlot ceremonial codes she had not had the occasion to follow in years. She often slept until noon, getting by on occasional music playing and teaching gigs.

Bon Bon spent hours every week getting the curls in her mane and tail to be just so. She snuck out of bed at the crack of dawn every morning to keep her little candy shop running and making enough bits to pay the mortgage on both the shop and the apartment above it.

There was absolutely no way Lyra could even begin to imagine the joy that Bon Bon must have felt when she got that scroll. How it must feel to have the chance to leap that chasm between wildest dream and reality. Could she really take that away from her?

“Another question.” Lyra took a short breath. ”If you did do this, what would happen after? What would it mean for us?”

“Well, we would still be married. As a royal concubine I would have the option of annulling our marriage if I wished, but I would never do that. Never.” Bon Bon had a serious look on her face. “Even if you decide to stay in the house in Ponyville instead of moving to the Palace.”

Even if… Lyra thought bitterly.

Celestia spoke.

“I will make sure to allow Bon Bon to spend as much time with you as she can, but I do have some plans for her that cannot be pre-empted. There will be a week’s sojourn to the Crystal Empire, for example.” Celestia paused. “It is also… uncertain what would happen after Princess Twilight Sparkle’s coronation.”

Lyra wanted to both know and not know exactly what that meant. But that day was moons away. Maybe even years. Her world was ending now, and she could not help but focus on the immediately possible future.

“So… How does the ceremony work?”

“Oh, it’d be just like our wedding,” Bon Bon answered. “You’d just be my best mare, like Cherry Berry was. You’d walk me halfway down the aisle holding my hoof, then let me go, and I’d walk the rest of the way to be next to the Princess. Then…”

“You don’t need to say anything Bonnie, I still remember our wedding.” It wasn’t even two moons ago.

There was one more question Lyra had planned on asking. Have you always loved Celestia more than me? But Lyra did not have to ask to know the answer, and did not want to hear Bon Bon actually say it.

“Last question. Do you remember the day of Cranky and Matilda’s wedding?

“Yes, of course I remember that day.” Bon Bon smiled. “Though a lot more happened than just that wedding!”

“Yeah, I know.” Lyra smiled wanly. “When you confessed your secret to me, about being an agent of Celestia. I admit it, I didn’t really take it seriously. I grew up surrounded by ponies and parents of ponies who worked for Celestia and swore oaths to her service. I just figured it was sort of like that. But it was more than that, huh?”

“No, it meant that I would have given my life for Celestia,” Bon Bon said firmly. “When you said that thing about my imported oats later, I was afraid you didn’t understand how serious what I said to you was.” Bon Bon paused. “But later that night, when you confessed the other thing…”

“It wasn’t because I had to actually confess something as big as your confession.” Lyra cast her gaze aside, avoiding eye contact. “It was that when you said what you said, I was so afraid. I just couldn’t bear the thought of losing what our time together meant….”

Lyra cast her gaze downward. Bon Bon finally understood why Lyra brought this all up. She got close to Lyra, lifting her face up with her hoof to meet her gaze. She smiled at her sweetly through lidded eyes.

“It was all real. I love you.”

Lyra could not help but smile back, and lift her own hoof to hook around Bon Bon’s raised foreleg. They held each other’s gaze for a moment. Lyra wished that the moment could stretch on forever. But it was destined to be nothing more than a flash of light before an eternity of darkness. A small mercy at the end of a life.

Lyra knew what she would say next, and what would come after. She imagined it painful, though she knew that she could not even imagine just how painful it would be until it actually happened. But that didn’t matter. She loved Bon Bon. So much that she loved her more than she did Princess Celestia. So much that it did not matter that Bon Bon could not say the same thing to her. She loved her so, so, so very much, and in the end, wanted nothing more than her happiness. No matter what that meant. Even if it hurt her unimaginably.

“Princess Celestia, I accept.”