"Turn the page, turn the page!"
The flap of another tattered, cream-colored page tore through the crackle of the fire and the cool crisp sounds of crickets and summer breezes. The minutes had turned to hours long ago, the solitude of the castle gardens being perfect for nights like these.
"Look at this one, your hair was still pink!"
Both mares knew the night was in its final stages and that their time together would soon come to an end, but as surely as the moss crept up the enormously tall, ruined cobblestone walls that surrounded them, they felt as if they were the last two ponies in the world, and at times like these they may have well have been. There was nothing but them, and the cool summer breezes wafting through the vines and flowers that surrounded their little cove. When they were together, all the pressures of the world, all the expectations of them simply melted away into the darkness. And yet...
"You were such an adorable filly..."
Twilight couldn't help but grimace as their page slipped over the next, just a glimpse was enough to burn her doubts back into her brains. The tiny face that looked back at her in the photograph wasn't one that reminded her of herself. She grabbed her shoulders and ran a hoof across her jaw. Looking at old photos of herself, no, as the colt she once was, was uncomfortable. Like looking in a mirror and seeing somepony else. "At least somepony thinks so..."
This is the third time they've been through this album together and every time it felt the same. The intrigue of her mentor's past outweighed the inevitable feelings she so desperately wanted to avoid whenever she encountered her past self. The first half of the book was old, faded pictures and copies of paintings, relics of the past that were returned to life by the accounts of the princess at her side, regaled by tales of grandeur and love, heartache and deceit, Twilight was always enthralled by the breadth of wisdom that Celestia carried on her shoulders.
"I love this one," a breathy sigh escaped the more sentimental of the two mares. "Do you remember your first day at the magic academy? The day after you got your cutie mark?" Celesta cooed, breaking Twilight out of her own head just for a moment. The orange glow of the fire against her alabaster coat shimmered like the sun, the shadow she cast against the walls so grand it seemed to devour the detail of everything that wasn't her. Even the garish flannel blanket that cocooned them together seemed to fade into the background in her presence.
"Of course! How could I forget?" The photo was taken from over Twilight's shoulder; only three things in the frame. A goofy, bug-eyed, short-maned Twilight, a large, toothy flower bulb spilling out of a clay flower pot, and a name card. The least demanding of attention, the most innocuous little tent of purple construction paper, displaying that which had plagued her for so long. But she was getting tired. As a yawn escaped her, her eyes blurred, rendering the words on the page illegible; the caption melted away and details smudged in her brain, "I was trying so hard to be serious, but the camera was too close for me to keep a straight face" Twilight couldn't help but smirk, the fisheye of the lens had her brain distorted to look even bigger than normal.
A distraught silence hung in the air. Twilight looked up at Celestia only to meet her gaze. She'd already been knowingly looking at her for a time. "...Princess? Do you remember when I told you that I was... Like this? Before I was me?"
All Celestia did was nod and turn the page.
"Mister Sparkle, surely you wouldn't be hiding behind the bookshelf reading in my private study at two in the morning, right?" Celestia spoke sternly but calmly, standing in the doorway to a room that was not quite as she left it. As you can imagine, she wasn't too pleased to be awoken by a guard long before her morning duties, only to hear of a certain somepony sneaking around the castle after curfew.
The sound of a page turning halfway was sharply interrupted by a feeble "N-no..."
An exasperated sigh was all the mare could muster.
"I know you're excited, but come now, you need your-"
As she turned the corner to look behind the smallest shelf all she could see was the tiniest handful of unicorn illuminated only by a single candle, looking up at her, sniffling, surrounded by open biology textbooks, countless thesis papers, and most notably, a single locked text she recognized as a forbidden book of gender manipulation spells.
"...rest?"
At first, she was concerned, unsure what feelings she had just unwittingly intruded upon, but the state of her student made it absolutely clear that it wasn't to be taken lightly. The poor foal was shaking, it was clear there was an immeasurable weight of guilt bearing down on the unicorn in that moment. Celestia lept to their side, motherly compassion quickly overtaking any sourness from her preconceived notions of mischief.
"P-Princess I-I think there's something wrong with me..."
Hours later, mere moments before the sun had to be raised, the shaken filly was still surrounded by her teacher, not a full foot from the scattered papers of earlier...
Past the entire night of sniffles and tears, the ever-curious and quite sleep-deprived unicorn managed out, "What's it feel like to have wings, Princess?"
"Something tells me you'll know soon enough..." Celestia said softly, still swaddling the shivering mess of unicorn into a ball, holding her close to her body on the floor of her study.
"...Mmmm?" But it was too late. All the feelings had tuckered her out, she tried to stay, but the call of her dreams had her quickly fading into the glittery mess of her mentor's mane.
"Nothing, my sweet filly."
