Alicorn Biology: Princess Celestia

Lyra looked upwards as Princess Celestia approached her. Celestia extended a wing over the unicorn and pulled her to her side. Lyra could not help but derive some comfort from the warmth of the alicorn’s body and the softness of her wing feathers. She pressed her face against Celestia’s side, just behind her right foreleg, and sobbed.

The last time she had done this, she was just a little filly. She was distraught that her little group of friends had forgotten to invite her to a party when they made sure to include Moondancer, even though all she did at parties was sit in a corner and talk to Twilight about books, which is what she did all day anyway.

The world and her problems were so simple back then. How did it all come to this?

Lyra’s sobs slowed to a rhythm of gulps of air, then stopped. She did not know if it was Celestia’s comforting presence or the endorphins released by the sobbing or both, but she started to feel calmer. It was not quite acceptance. What was to come would still be very difficult. But the part of her that would have raged and lashed out withdrew from the scene, its emotional ammunition spent.

Celestia held her for a bit longer, saying nothing. Then she backed out a bit down the carpet, letting Bon Bon take her place with a comforting hoof on Lyra’s withers. Nopony said anything. Nothing needed to be said. No conversation between them could change the situation or the emotional state in a way that anypony there would have preferred to what was.

Celestia broke the silence.

“A part of me wishes that for your sake, we were still in the old days. Then you would have seen the proper form of the ceremony, in a brightly lit Throne Room decorated just for the occasion, instead of this improvised version held in secret.”

She gestured at the left-hoof side of the bedroom with her wing. “That half of the room would have been filled with your friends, family, and representatives of your community in their best ceremonial garb, sometimes having looked forward to this day for years.”

She turned to face Bon Bon.

“Your wedding dress and veil would not have been bought at a store, its quality limited by the budget of a shopkeeper. It would have been as expensive and elaborate as your family and community could afford: a display of their wealth and devotion to the nation. The amount that was spent gave me pause sometimes, but I have to admit it made for some amazing dresses.“

She then looked towards the right half of the room.

“On that side would have sat various court officials and dignitaries from my capital. The politics around who would be invited would get… intense.” Celestia sighed. “That is one aspect I definitely do not miss.”

She turned to face Lyra.

“And you, Lyra. All best mares received an excess of glories from the world outside Canterlot, but being the wife of a concubine was the highest honor of all. Only the most ambitious and calculating mares could ever dream of pulling off such a coup for their careers and families.“

Lyra realized the irony, as the last thing she would have called herself was ‘ambitious’ and ‘calculating’.

“In those days, you could trot into Mayor Mare’s office tomorrow and she would gladly surrender her position to you, if you wanted. And mayorship then was not the neutered office limited to bureaucracy and ceremony it is today. You would have held true power in your community.“

Lyra hoped Celestia was not telling her this to make her feel better. If she had cared about such things she would still be living in Canterlot, desperately climbing every social ladder she could.

“Well, that’s enough reminiscing,” she smiled. “Are you ready, Lyra?”

The sentence was not just a proposal to start the ceremony. It was the crack of a door being held open. Lyra firmly closed it.

“Yes, Princess Celestia.”

“Splendid.” Princess Celestia happily turned and trotted ahead, down the red carpet, to her place on the right side of the arch. Her horn glowed as she began to manipulate a gramophone that was in the heap of furniture on the far end of the chamber. The room filled with a scratchy rendition of the traditional wedding march.

“For centuries, I would have had to hum the music myself. I felt a bit sorry for my secret concubines then. It did spoil what little dignity the ceremony had left. Modern technology is wonderful, isn’t it?”

Bon Bon smiled. Lyra tried to, and only managed a weak one.

“Well, let’s get started!”

Lyra turned to look at Bon Bon, who was smiling warmly at her behind her veil. The sheer fabric covering her face could not stop her aching beauty from radiating through. It was exactly like their wedding day. Except Lyra would not be the pony to flip the veil back with an aura of glowing magic; to stare directly into her endless blue eyes.

Lyra took her offered hoof, and they began their walk down the red carpet. Every step taking them ever closer to the end. When they reached the halfway point, Lyra still held on to Bon Bon’s hoof as she took another step forward, with Bon Bon lurching forward in surprise. Misjudged the distance, she insisted to herself. But she dared not repeat the action. She let go of Bon Bon, who gave Lyra one last smile before turning towards her Goddess. Bon Bon stepped forward alone to her destiny.

She took her place at the other side of the arch, looking up towards Celestia. Celestia let a moment pass before speaking.

“Do you, Bon Bon, accept your role as concubine in my Harem by my grace, to love me and be devoted to me, to join your flesh with mine?”

“I do.”

The pieces fell into place. The part of Lyra that still thought this was all some sort of weird dream, a sick parody of the happiest day of her life, was replaced by a much more horrifying conclusion. Their wedding had been the scratchy reproduction wheezing out from a tinny gramophone horn. What she was witnessing now was the original performance in full brass organ.

“I will now seal you to me with the ring.”

Bon Bon’s cutie mark began to glow, and she excitedly hiked up her wedding dress to see what was happening. The three lovely candies --which Lyra would always kiss in turn to make Bon Bon giggle— were being encircled by a golden band tracing itself out. The band stopped just short of completing the circle at the top, and in lieu of finishing, a sun motif appeared to complete the circle.

Lyra thought of their wedding rings, which like most married pony couples they kept in boxes tucked away in a dresser somewhere. Then she thought about that day.

It had been a day that she had been waiting for a while then. Ponies panicking and running around as yet another monster terrorized the streets. It was not the perfect reproduction, as the monsters were nothing more than creepy little apple creatures and the cause turned out to be Discord and not Twilight and her friends, but it was close enough to that day with the bugbear when Bon Bon confessed her secret and Lyra confessed hers in turn, later that night. Then, their first kiss. Their first everything.

So it was perfect enough. Lyra got down awkwardly on one knee and pulled out the ring she had bought in secret on their last trip to Manehattan. She remembered what happened next with perfect clarity, like how anypony would remember the happiest moment of their life. Bon Bon bringing up a hoof to her mouth in surprise, then turning around to pull out a ring of her own.

Now, whenever she would think about that memory, she would not be able to stop herself from thinking of the more permanent ring magically etched into her wife’s flank, proclaiming her loyalty to a bond deeper than mere wife and wife.

“I am happy to say that I now pronounce you my concubine.”

That snapped Lyra out of her reverie. Lyra watched as Princess Celestia pulled back Bon Bon’s veil. They looked into each others’ eyes.

“You may now kiss your Goddess.”

Bon Bon did so. The music crescendoed.

This was the part of the traditional ceremony where all in attendance would clap their hooves on the ground in celebration. But in the traditional Celestian wedding ceremony, the best mares were expected to, if anything, not exhibit such emotions, for they still had one more duty left to do. One they would undertake later that night, after the reception and after all the other guests had gone home.

The traditional rites allowed for the threshold to be decorated with “works of iron, stone, or wood not to cover the line of sight, or glass”. Between the “or”, the invention of frosted glass in the intervening time, and the industrialization process that brought down the price of a threshold-sized pane of glass from unimaginable to feasible, the letter of the law could be followed while minimizing the discordance with modern pony mores.

As much as she loved her mother, she could not help but take her discomfort as a sweet, petty revenge for all of the things she had said about Bon Bon during their relationship. No, she just felt sorry for Cherry Berry, having to stand there alongside Lyra’s mother with her eyes fixed on the glass. Trying to ignore what Lyra and Bon Bon were doing on the other side, just like Lyra and Bon Bon were trying and failing to ignore them.

They actually had, ironically, the worst sex of their lives on their wedding night. Bon Bon even agreed and was apologetic, but refused to “fake it” and retroactively ruin the meaning of the whole day. They worked and worked until Bon Bon finally arrived at a tiny, measly shiver of an orgasm, which she moaned about as if waves of pleasure were rocking through her body. Loudly enough for Cherry Berry to hear and finally go home, traumatized.

So it did not surprise Lyra to hear what Celestia said to her next.

With a deeply apologetic tone, Celestia spoke.

“It is customary for the best mare to watch the entirety of the consummation from the other side of the ceremonial arch, but if it would be too much for you…“

“No need to change it for me, Princess Celestia. I would rather watch and know than not watch and wonder.” It was true.

“Very well.”

Celestia took Bon Bon’s hoof and led her through the arch. Bon Bon gave Lyra one last apologetic look before stepping through. But she could not conceal her excitement.

As Celestia and Bon Bon ascended the steps of Celestia’s bed, Lyra began to walk forward the rest of the way to the arch. Her hooves felt like lead. As she was taking her place, Bon Bon was lying back on the canopy bed, with Celestia seated in front of her. Celestia’s horn glowed and lifted Bon Bon’s veil and dress away. She was now lying down naked in front of her Goddess.

Lyra’s world was about to end, and she had to watch it all.