Gone with the Wind

It had been two days since Celestia and Luna turned into Alicorns. Princess Platinum was the leader closest to the castle when word got out that Starswirl's students had turned into Alicorns. She arrived first and had dragged Luna away from Starswirl to try and explain to Luna, for the hundredth time, why she needed to have more class.

Celestia wasn't so lucky.

She was stuck in Starswirl's underground laboratory that could only be accessed by a secret button in the library of the castle. She had wires and clips stuck on her horn, wings, and front hooves. All the readings her body was giving those devices were sent to one giant machine in front of her that had strange information coming out of it once in a while as Starswirl watched her and scribbled down more notes.

She slumped as her body hurt from the few miles gallop Starswirl made her do to test her endurance. Why did he need her to do this anyway? She had so many better things to do than sit there and be a lab experiment. She looked around for something noticeable to focus on. The walls were covered with notes and theories, there was potion equipment scattered about mixed with other machines she had yet to identify.

She gritted her teeth as Starswirl ran around collecting notes and notes, muttering nonsense to himself as he rechecked, then double-checked, maybe even a triple check of all the information he gathered. She had sensed it was time for sunset. Her new internal clock was annoying as if she was late on lowering or raising the sun, her body would ache all over. But for once, it might actually help her.

"Teacher." She called out. Starswirl looked over to his student with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, Celestia?"

"It is time for me to lower the sun."

He sighed and placed his notes down in an unorganized pile on the table nearest to him. He used his magic to remove the wires and clips from her body.

"I suppose it is time to end the study for today. Thank you, Celestia, for your patience."

She nodded, then silently left the laboratory.

(One Week later.)

Celestia was in the Library at around midnight. Frantically going through all her notes with about one hundred books surrounding her. She was pretty sure she hadn't slept in three days. But that didn't matter. She needed to find the answer. She needed to find it now.

"Celestia?"

The three leaders arrived at the castle today and decided to announce that they were given control of Equestria to the sisters because, in their own words, the three leaders couldn't be trusted.

It was a load of hay and everypony knew it.

"Celestia!"

Celestia was making the active decision to ignore her mentor, which she was aware was bad but screw that. She had a right. Equestria was supposed to be a free nation. She had rights. She had the right to ignore her mentor if she damn wanted to.

"Celestia! Look at me right now!"

There it was. The disappointed look added with the Fatherly "You screw up bad," tone. She didn't need to look up to know he was furious with her. Luna probably ratted her out so that she could have ice cream. Typical.

Celestia slowly looked up at her mentor, who was staring daggers at her.

"Have you gone mad?"

Well, she did have a sudden and unexpected change to her body recently so it wasn't too much to assume she might have gone a little loopy. But mad? Insane? No.

"No. I am fine."

"You are trying to kill yourself and Luna with this theory."

"Is that how Luna described it?" Celestia snapped back bitterly as she went back to slipping through her notes.

"Luna hasn't said anything. Stygian told me."

"Of course he did." Celestia muttered with hatred. "Always trying too hard to impress you. What a sellout."

"Celestia." Starswirl barked. "That isn-"

"I am not in class right now. So please leave me alone." She interrupted.

"No. You don't understand what you are doing. I know you are trying to separate your new magic from your old magic to send back to us but if you do, either the years that you will spend as an alicorn will catch up to you and you will fade to dust from age. Or you will die from the sprain your body will take from the removal. No unicorn can remove magic by themselves. I think the same is with an Alicorn. My experiments haven't failed me yet."

"They haven't," Celestia admitted. "But that doesn't mean they won't in the future. Pride has always been one of your worst and best qualities."

"Why aren't you accepting your role?" Starswirl demanded. Taking a few steps closer to her as the light illuminating the room from her lamp next to her flickered.

"I don't want to be an Alicorn. I don't want to rule over Equestria. I barely know anything about politics! I want to go back to the farm." Celestia argued. "It was weird enough that we were 'powerful' unicorns made by two farming Earth ponies. Now we are an extinct species of god ponies, expected to rule. SO, excuse me for not wanting to be this way!"

"I understand how you fee-"

"No. You don't." Celestia snapped back with tears in her eyes as she slowly rose from the floor and faced her mentor. "You don't know what this is like at ALL!"

She stormed past her teacher, then used her magic to open the door as Starswirl turned to her once again.

"Please. Don't do it." Starswirl pleaded. "Don't go through with the experiment."

Celestia paused and turned her head slightly to respond but decided against it and left the library quickly.

"She is going to get them both killed." Starswirl mumbled as he was left with his thoughts alone in the Library.

---End of Chapter Two---