The Siege Of Canterlot

"Blessed be our Princess, first of her name, Holiest of Holies, Light of the World..."

"Blessed be our Princess..."

The muttered words, so familiar to each ear, echoed around the chapel. Canterlot was replete with such structures, temples and houses of worship that ranged in scale from the tiny streetside pews where citizens could stop and kneel for a few moments to offer a short prayer of thanks or a request for beneficence from their Princess, right up to the Golden Cathedral itself where Celestia had been crowned as sole and rightful ruler of Equestria seven hundred and four years ago. Of course, prayers could be uttered anywhere, in any setting, no matter how holy or otherwise they might be. 'A brothel is as good as a cathedral,' as the slightly blasphemous saying went. Some ponies never set foot inside a temple at all, even though they lived in the capital city where such places were as common as alehouses. That did not mean they were not pious; merely that they gave their obeisance to Celestia in a less formal way.

"And the Princess spake and bade him come before her, so that he may gaze upon her in her majesty, and lo, he did so, and he was afraid. 'Be not afraid, my subject,' the Princess told him, 'for you have come before me a poor and humble stallion. Yet you shall leave here rich in spirit.' And the stallion praised the Sun, and the Sun was generous to him, and true to her word. Blessed be our Princess."

"Blessed be our Princess..."

The Priest of Celestia giving the blessing and the reading from one of the holy books was High Ecclesiarch Amber Frost, the most senior member of the priesthood, the order of devout ponies who had long ago taken to turning the worship of Celestia from a secular praising of a glorious and beloved leader into nothing short of a religion. Most messianic figures throughout history had managed to form such a cult around them, but rarely had they been so successful, partly because they had never had any opportunity to show their divinity. Some leaders claimed to be ordained by, or sent from, the heavens with nothing to back up their assertion. But Princess Celestia was different, and she had shown time and again that she was worthy of such worship. An Alicorn could scarcely be anything less, unless, like her fallen sister, they committed some heinous act against ponykind.

Amber Frost was a wizened old stallion, as befitted his high and esteemed rank within the priesthood. His yellow-orange coat and beard contrasted with the white robes and gold-traced cassock he wore, but all were appropriate shades, for they were the colours of Celestia; white and gold to symbolise her divinity, and the colours of the sun. He had seen many summers, and many winters too, for life in Equestria was not all peace and prosperity. Not for all of its citizens, anyway. Many young priests and priestesses would carry the word of Celestia's divine light to the far reaches of the land, taking their first assignments in border towns or fortress garrisons. The bravest or most adventurous among them would travel farther still, to other kingdoms, among other species, not all of whom were necessarily receptive to their teachings. Many aspiring acolytes had found themselves being sent home without a head, or perhaps in pieces, after suffering some cruel punishment or other for treading on the toes or hooves of those whose devotion lay elsewhere. Yet even as they died, the legends tod, they would speak the name of their Princess, for to die with her name on your lips was to ensure your everlasting glory at her side in the afterlife.

The crowd Frost was addressing was not necessarily as devout as those who donned the robes of the priesthood. He was not speaking in the Golden Cathedral, for that was retained for grand spectacles such as royal weddings, funerals, or investitures, where Celestia would ennoble some high-born pony with a suitable title such as Viscount, Duchess or Margrave, granting them land and prestige in the process. He was speaking in the Chapel of the Elms, one of a number of smaller buildings across the capital that could hold a few hundred worshippers. It was the chapel where he had been priest-in-residence before acceding to the title of High Ecclesiarch, and he often returned to the pulpit to address the congregation, some of whom were now wizened and grey like he was, but had been among the crowd the day he gave his first address some seventy years earlier.

"Praise be to the Princess, for she shall guide us. Praise be to the Princess, for she shall preserve us. Praise be to the Princess, for she shall empower us. Praise be to the Princess, for she shall complete us! Praise the Sun!"

"Praise the Sun!" came the dutiful reply from the congregation. Frost repeated the final line of the prayer twice more before concluding the sermon. "Blessings of the Princess to you all, go in peace and enjoy the day she has given."

The crowd of ponies stood and began to depart, a cross-section of ponykind. Young, old, male, female, even a few curious tourists from foreign lands, judging by the unusual cuts of Saddle Arabian cloth that Frost could spy farther back. Worshipping the Princess was not something to be looked upon as a chore, as he often reminded young acolytes at the seminary. It was something to be embraced, as much a part of everyday life as eating or even breathing. It was also, he reminded them, much easier than it might have been; after all, was it not far more straightforward to worship something which you could see? Something you could hear? Something that walked among you every day, provided of course that you lived in the palace, or at least the royal quarter?

Such was the theory, though in truth it was rare for a resident of Canterlot to knowingly catch a glimpse of the Princess, and those ponies living in distant towns and cities would like as not never see her at all in their lives, other than in the glorious depictions in stained glass windows or bronze statues that every town had at least a few of. But even if they never saw her in person, they knew she was there, watching over them, guiding them, as she had been for seven hundred and four years.

"An excellent sermon, High Ecclesiarch..."

Frost turned in surprise. It was not the voice he had expected to hear, that of the current priest of the Chapel of the Elms, Amethyst, though it was no less feminine. He bowed his head.

"Your Highness..."

Celestia smiled, peering out from beneath the cowl of an inconspicuous grey cloak, the kind often worn by pilgrims, or wealthy merchants seeking to avoid too much attention from criminals and pickpockets. Evidently it was also the choice of a Princess seeking to attend a sermon to herself without anyone noticing.

"Please, you have already shown your devotion," Celestia responded. "As if there was any doubt."

"I did not know you were present, Your Highness. How did you sneak in, as it were?" Frost asked, raising his eyes once more to look at her. The crowd had filed out, the sermon over, and Celestia lowered her hood. Instead of her usual vibrant, multicoloured mane was a head of pink hair, of the shade, it was said, that she had as a filly. She also had a beard of a similar slate grey to Frost's, which she swiftly removed with a chuckle, revealing her true beauty once more.

"It is quite simple...all one has to do is lean against a pillar, muttering to oneself...I find it keeps ponies at bay," she smiled. "I venture that they either thought I was quite mad, or that I was perhaps plotting to assassinate the High Ecclesiarch...though interestingly, nopony reported me to the guards..." A playful smirk crossed her face, and Frost had to smile in response.

"Quite the mistress of disguise, Your Highness," he quipped. "Your talents truly know no bounds." It was well known among those in appropriately high places, though not among the general public, that the Princess liked to perform such tricks from time to time, leaving the palace alone, without telling any of her guards or handmaidens, to visit some innocuous place by herself, in disguise, just to get the lay of the land and hear what ponies on the street were saying- not about her, but about life in Equestria, about the city, about prosperity and safety and even the little, inconsequential things, like were the public latrines emptied frequently enough, and just what was Countess Roanoak thinking when she wore that hat?

"It is perhaps something which every royal should keep in their arsenal," Celestia mused, her magenta eyes sparkling with mirth and warmth, so entrancing they could enrapture an entire audience with little effort required. The cloak was useful for a multitude of reasons; it hid her mane, darkened her eyes, concealed even the fact that she was a mare, thanks to its androgynous and amorphous fit. The beard helped cement the illusion of a large, perhaps slightly demented stallion, for Celestia was tall- very tall indeed for a mare, as befitted her Alicorn physiology. Her horn should have proved rather more difficult to hide, but a simple spell of invisibility, selectively cast, concealed it from view. Were she to shed the cape and beard, remove the spell, and spread her wings in the middle of the sermon, half the assembled ponies would likely have fallen to their knees in awe, while the other half fainted away from shock.

"Indeed so, Your Highness. A most laudable skill that would almost make a Changeling blush,' Frost smiled. "Is there anything I may assist you with on this fine morning?"

"No, High Ecclesiarch, but thank you. I merely wished to observe one of your excellent sermons and see how my subjects reacted. It seems you may have one or two who were reluctant to attend, but I am sure they merely had a late night and would rather have stayed in bed," Celestia chuckled.

"Had they known you would be present, Your Highness, they would have skipped breakfast and rushed to take their seats," Frost responded gracefully. He was probably correct, of course; ponies loved their Princess, even more than they loved their families in some cases. She was the one who had saved them from Discord long ago- along with her sister, but Luna was rarely talked about anymore. Her treachery had seen to that, for she had turned on Celestia and been banished to the moon for a thousand years as a result. That was seven centuries in the past, and while her name had not exactly been scrubbed from the history books, it was rare to find her mentioned at all. That was not a conscious command from Celestia, but more of an organic, natural process from her subjects. Reminders of what was sometimes dubbed The Great Betrayal were not welcome, for any thoughts of such heinous crimes in modern times would be seen as dangerous and potentially subversive.

"Perhaps tomorrow I shall visit the market," Celestia mused. "In disguise, of course. Just to see what they have on offer there."

"Why not go undisguised, Your Highness?' Frost questioned. "Your subjects would love to see you strolling through their market."

"They would, I am sure. But I do not wish to distract them from their day," Celestia replied. "It is bad enough that I am here keeping you from your duties. Forgive me. I should return to the palace before the Royal Guard send out a search party. You know how they can be sometimes..." She smiled, nodding at Frost as he bowed his head once more.

"Very good, Your Highness. Thank you for gracing your subjects with your presence...even if they were unaware of it," the High Ecclesiarch took Celestia's outstretched hand, gently kissing it in deference to his Princess.

"I shall take my leave, then." Celestia reattached her false beard and raised her hood, heading for the doors out of the chapel. As she did so, a small green filly appeared from behind a pillar, pointing an accusing finger.

"You're Pwincess Cewestia!" she stated. "I saw you..." The now-hooded Princess knelt down before the young child.

"Did you, indeed? What's your name?"

"Yes! I saw you tawking to the Eccwesiarch!" the filly nodded vigorously. "My name is Meadow! Wow...I never thought I'd see the Pwincess...I wove you, Princess!"

"And I love you too, my child," Celestia replied, smiling behind her false beard. "But don't tell anypony else that you saw me, ok? It'll be our little secret..." she winked. "You see, I'm supposed to be in a meeting right now...but I told the Agriculture Minister I was busy, just so I could sneak out and come here to see you and the Ecclesiarch. If the minister found out the truth..." she tutted. "I might get in trouble. You won't tell on me, will you?"

"No! I won't tell on my Pwincess!" the filly replied with a giggle.

"Good girl..." Celestia patted her on the head as a black mare entered the chapel.

"Oh, Meadow, there you are! Thank goodness, I thought we'd lost you...come on, dear, your brother and father are waiting outside..." She eyed the cloaked stranger with apprehension. "Come away from that pony..." Celestia gave her another wink, and Meadow grinned before following her mother.

"Ok mommy! I was just talking to the...um, the Eccwesiarch's cousin! He's nice." Meadow's mother led her out of the chapel, and Celestia departed as well with a farewell glance at Amber Frost. With the Princess gone, Frost could finally relax. He headed to the vestry to remove his ceremonial robes. Tending to the spiritual needs of his congregation was never easy when he was a simple priest, but as Ecclesiarch, he was responsible for the needs of the entire nation, a task which weighed heavily on his shoulders. Having the Princess so near, however, was a big help, because ponies knew she was present in the city. The more far-flung parts of Equestria lacked that immediacy of her influence. Frost had spent many years as a younger pony away for months at a time visiting other cities, but Canterlot was his home. It was the home of the Princess. It was the home of the entire faith, and he was deeply proud to be part of it. He knew that Celestia would never let her subjects down, and in turn, that meant that he knew he would never let her down. That was his duty, just as it was the duty of every citizen of Equestria.

Faith could be tested, faith could be bent and twisted, but faith could never be broken. Not while Celestia still drew breath.