Twilight Sparkle and the Stupid Original Pony

Celestia and Twilight headed for the showers, sweaty from their laps around the track.

“Oh, yeah, good gallop, Celestia. I’m feeling that.” Twilight shifted her weight from side to side as she stretched tired muscles.

After quite pointedly not appearing for Hearthwarming, Twilight had manifested the very next day and joined her elder for exercise. Together they cleared the obstacle course and brutalized some practice dummies crudely modeled after un-matured changelings; then a five kilometer gallop really brought the burn home to them.

“Likewise, dear. I hope Taj’ feels like being on top tonight, if I even stay awake that long. But it’s good to have a workout, I must watch my figure.”

Especially post Hearthwarming, Twilight snarked silently. Those cakes don’t just eat themselves.

Let’s see how your firm flank looks in a thousand years, Celestia didn’t reply.

“You don’t look a day over three hundred,” Twilight said aloud, “is it the exercise, or are you holding out on me and keeping all your ‘shapely and sexy’ spells to yourself?”

“It could be both. You’ll never know until you defeat me! Bahahaha!”

Celestia’s imitation of Daybreaker’s laugh was closer to reality than Twilight liked. She chuckled too, albeit nervously.

“After I walked in on you and Prince Taj’, you said that you hadn’t gotten laid in my lifetime. Tell me more? Who was your last lover, and when?”

“Oh, Twilight, a princess must not buck and tell.”

“Really? Are you gonna pull a Rarity style cop-out for something that happened more than a quarter century ago by your account? I thought that we were close enough that the raw locker-room truth was not off limits.”

“My dear, dear, student, you never fail to astound me. In the whole of existence you have hit on the one topic I am not comfortable discussing with you. Ask me anything else.”

“Anything?”

“The most audacious thing you can think of.”

“Okay, then. As I learned on Terra, let’s go Nuclear Option First… do you like it in the ass?”

“Yes.” Celestia tossed her head defiantly. “As long as it does not get messy. Do you?”

“The jury is still out on dick but Tangent can do some pretty amazing stuff back there with his tongue.”

“Kinky. Any more questions?”

“How often do you clop?”

“A couple times a month most centuries, but not at all now that I have hooked up with young Tajrahaz.”

“Who was your first?”

“This is most strictly confidential—”

Twilight nodded and Celestia hunkered down conspiratorially to whisper in her ear “—but I used to have a brother.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped.

“His name,” Celestia whispered, suddenly tragic, “before the change, was… Lunar.”

“WUT!” Twilight stood in complete flabbergast. She waved a hoof through obscure patterns in the air.

POP

Luna stood there, holding a large golden pair of shears.

“Luna! Did you used to be a colt‽”

“What tomfoalery be this?”

Luna noticed Celestia snickering behind Twilight.

“Oh fie, the ‘Lunar’ gag again. We have not heard that old cheſtnut in centuries – one of the advantages of taking up a reſidency upon the moon. Might we return to our work? We have an all night trauma stand to dedicate and V.I.P.s bewait the ribbon cutting.”

“Violently Injured Ponies?” asked Celestia, quietly, “you said it is a trauma stand, sister...”

Twilight lowered her hoof, trailing motes of light.

POP

Luna was gone and Celestia no longer restrained her laughter.

“Hahahaha, I gotcha,” she snorted.

“You sure did,” Twilight laughed along, “but seriously, did you really… with your sister?”

“No, no, no, that was only a horrible joke, you should have seen your face. I love Luna dearly, but princest has never even tempted me. My first was a charming, kind, aristocratic stallion from the North Counties. A right proper gentlepony he was. Cut, hung, and ever so gracious. Rawr!” The humor faded from her voice as she continued. “He has been dead for centuries, of course, forgotten even in his own hometown. His gravestone is too worn with time to be read, he is memorialized now only in my heart.”

“Awww, that’s so sad, but really sweet,” Twilight said solemnly.

“Every year on a certain day in the spring,” Celestia’s eyes were wide in an exaggerated imitation of feigned innocence, “a white and gilt rose is found on his grave and nopony knows how it gets there…”

After a moment Twilight commented, “well I’ve never had Luna either.”

“No, I would suppose not,” Celestia chuckled.

“Not that I haven’t tried!” Twilight swaggered a little when she dropped it like a bomb.

It was Celestia’s turn to be shocked.

“But you did not? Am I wrong?”

“Nah, she shot me down, though I know she wanted me. Why such alarm?”

“Er, only that I never realized what dark tensions moiled under my very roof. Since we few alicorns all need to work together it is probably for the best that you found love with one from outside our circle.”

“And tomorrow, I will cast the meta-spell I believe will take me back to him. I’m worried, teacher. What if he gave up on me?”

“Surely not? I thought you were confident of his devotion.”

“I am, I trust him. But I was kinda a bitch to him when we first were lov—, eh, well before that even. When we first started bucking. He had good cause to worry that I had abandoned him while I was stuck getting ready for my trial and that was only a few days.”

“This separation has been longer—” nowhere near as long as Celestia had needed to keep them apart for everypony’s good “—but you both must have grown more sure of each other during his weeks in Ponyville.”

Those weeks had been the best of her life; Twilight smiled at the thought of the years she hoped to spend with him. Some day, she knew, she would look back and a mortal’s lifetime would be no more than a flicker of brightness in the dark pit of infinite receding years. But for now, the decades ahead held the promise of vast potential.

“I hope he’s been having a good time on Terra.”

“You really have not shared anything about how you met him. At least not with this old mare.”

“Let’s just say that when I went off the rails—” by some unspoken agreement they would not delve into the how or why of that event, not tonight “—I went looking for action without commitment and somehow blundered into love instead. Emphasis on blunder because I don’t think I did anything right.”

“How long did you know the human before you began the physical phase of your relationship?”

“It was at least three minutes, teacher, but not much more. I didn’t catch his name until some days later.”

“How classy of you, young princess. But he’lln’t’ve’d any doubts after the oath he took so passionately when the two of you pledged yourselves to each other. I do not think you have anything to worry about my dear. I only met the fellow very briefly but I believe he is every bit as enchanted by you, as you are by him. A short time apart will only have stoked his passion for you.”

Twilight blinked.

Her brain had hiccuped at Celestia’s utterly unexpected quadruple contraction and it took her a moment to parse the rest of her Highness’s words.

“If you’re right, I may be gone for a while before we return. I need a little quality time with just him and me, and nopony else. No audience, if you know what I mean. We’ll lock his door and it will be the two of us.”

“And I will stand by my word, when you bring him back.”

“If Tangent destroys Equestria I formally cede you the right to say ‘I told you so’. And I’m willing to put that in writing, signed in blood!”

“Jest not, young one. I will not find any comfort in being right as ponies die around me – my own death will be welcome in the face of such failure. Are you done quizzing me?”

“I think that was enough impertinence for now. I only asked my first question because these eight weeks have been hard on me—”

“The rest of us too, dear,” said Celestia quietly.

“—and that made me think about how long you’ve been solo. Even if you never, ever, tell me about it I hope that your last relationship, however long it lasted, was insanely wonderful since you’ve spent so long with nopony special. I’m glad things are working out for you and Prince Tajrahaz.”

“Thank you, Twilight. I do hope that ten, twenty, fifty years from now you are the one telling me ‘I told you so.’”

“And in a hundred years when Tangent is dead, or in a thousand when I have outlived him by centuries, what then, teacher? What do I do then?”

“We will grieve our loves together, and we will never forget though the millennia burn beneath our wings like leaves in the fury banewind.”