Disgrace. It's a funny word, isn't it. All about grace, and the lack of it. The loss of it.
I used to wonder what it would feel like, to lose that.
Now I don't have to wonder anymore.
The Princess of the Sun looks down at me from her throne, a thousand miles away. Her sunset eyes bore into me, seeing into my essence, my soul itself – and then she turns her gaze away. She sees all that I am, and she chooses not to look.
"Thank you for your long and dedicated service, Lady Velvet," she says, and her voice echoes as though she is speaking from the other end of a tunnel. "I have valued every day of your company."
And I don't miss it, and nor does anypony else. The past tense.
It's over.
She doesn't want me here any more.
My eyes prickle, a hint of the tears that I won't let fall. Twelve years in the Canterlot court have not been misspent, and my expression is smooth, my voice steady as I answer her. "I will be sorry to leave your service, your Highness."
And unlike her, I am not lying when I speak.
She offers me a small smile, lips closed, no teeth showing. It is as warm and heartfelt as it always is, but now there is an emptiness in the soft pink shades of her mouth that I have not seen before. Or perhaps it was always there, and I just never noticed.
Lowering one foreleg into a formal bow, I stoop so low that my horn almost brushes the floor.
The Princess dips her head. Not a bow. Not even quite a nod. Only the slightest inclination. But the courtiers around us whisper and stir. A sign of great respect, they think it. A mark of honour, bestowed by a benevolent monarch onto a beloved courtier.
I cannot even meet her eyes. As I rise back up I swing immediately into a turn, the hems of my robes swirling around my legs. Moving at a pace just a little faster than my usual careful statesmare pace, I make my way down the carpeted aisle. Courtiers on either side murmur their goodbyes and good wishes, and more than one smiles with a vicious sort of smile. One less rival for the Princess' favour.
With the measured, graceful steps that I was taught as a foal, I leave the throne room that has been the sum total of all my ambition since I was old enough to have it. I leave the castle that has been my home since I was an eight-year-old filly, frightened and fresh from my mother's country estate.
After fifteen years, I am…adrift. The Sun Court is behind me now, and who knows what lies ahead?
My silver horseshoes clop against the cobblestones. Ponies turn to stare as I pass. I can see what they are thinking: what is a courtier in full regalia doing, walking to the train station alone? A unicorn with the white coat that marks her out as one of the Celestine caste – those who bear the blood, no matter how distantly, of the Princess herself. No matter how much Equestria pretends that it has moved on from the old caste system, ponies still know how to recognise the noble Celestine houses: the Fancies, the Lis, the Bluebloods…and us. The House of Twilight, ancient and noble.
For fourteen generations my ancestors have traced their line, mother to daughter, all the way back to Lady Twilight Evenstar herself, the youngest daughter of Prince Solar, son of the Sun. For fourteen generations we have held our heads high. Moved with pride among the great and powerful of our nation, honoured guests at the court and beyond.
Right up until now.
The fifteenth generation.
Me.
For the last five generations, the eldest daughters of House have been schooled at court, under the personal supervision of the Princess. And for five generations, the Lady Twilights raised by Celestia have been obedient courtiers, model nobles. They have served in minor governmental roles, attended the relevant balls and functions, and – most importantly – they have not been slow to marry and provide the House of Twilight with an heir.
All of that ends here, today. With me.
Disgraced.
What is grace? The battered old dictionary in my mother's library described it as the favour of the divine, their blessings and the light of their presence.
To me, grace was something more personal. The soft greeting from the Princess when you entered the examination hall for your yearly test. The shimmer of the light in her mane as she delivered her weekly lesson in our classroom. The thrill of being there at state functions, one of her ladies in waiting, chosen by her. And most rarely of all, the fleeting sight of that soft little smile aimed your way. Just for you. Making you feel like the most special pony in the world, just for a minute.
By any definition, all is lost to me now.
On my twenty-second birthday, the Princess asked to see me. She didn't command us, even when we were foals. She always asked.
"Only one year left until you are twenty-three, isn't that right, Velvet?" She smiled at me over her reading glasses. I'm certain that they had no function, those glasses. But they made her more…more of a pony, somehow. I think that's why she wore them.
"Yes, your Highness." Even though I grew up with her, even though I was a Countess in my own right, even though I was the heir to a duchy, she still made me sweat with fear every time she looked my way. I think lot of us felt that way, as foals. We wanted her to love us, but we were too afraid that she wouldn't.
"You're almost ready to take up your responsibilities as heir to Duchess Twilight." The curve of her lips held steady as she said it, but my blood ran cold.
I knew what was coming next. My mother had given me the same speech enough times.
"Do you think you're ready to start taking on more of that role?"
I knew exactly what that meant. Twenty-three was the age of majority in Old Unicornia, before the Celestian Age, and the old noble families still cling to it. When you turn twenty-three, the rules are clear. You take on a management role on the family estate. You take on a minor role in a backwater department of the Canterlot government. And – most importantly in the family's eyes – you do your duty and produce an heir.
I swallow. "Yes, Princess, for…for some of them."
Spending more time near the Veridian Hills estate might be nice. I haven't been there much since I left, and my memories of my childhood are…hazy, but I was happy there. The meadows dappled with sunlight, the ferns amid the wildflower meadows. The laughter of the friends I had to leave behind.
Yes, going home…I could handle that.
Even the post in government – it sounds dull, monotonous, from what I hear from my Canterlot circle. But I can do dull. I can do monotonous.
What I can't do is…is motherhood.
But Princess Celestia tilted her head, eyes full of sympathy, and I felt my fate coming at me like a freight train.
No, I wanted to scream. I'm not ready.
"I think I know what you're worried about," she said, voice soft, "Everypony struggles with these sort of fears at your age."
"Maybe," I answered doubtfully.
"But I want you to know that your mother thinks you are ready." She tapped a hoof on her desk, and too late, I spotted the parchment with the my mother's seal. My heartbeat stuttered and quickened. Like a deer surrounded by timberwolves, I had been outflanked. Celestia must have seen the fear in my eyes, because her gentle smile deepened a little more. Silk and velvet cloaking steel beneath. "And so do I."
"I – I don't know," I stutter. "Parenthood is – it's not–"
Her eyes widened a fraction. I shouldn't have said it outright. Here at court we talk around the issue, we don't say it outright.
But she is Princess, with a thousand winters under her belt. She recovers quickly. "For what it's worth, I think you would be a wonderful parent. You've always been so patient with the younger children."
I shook my head. "That's not – it's just…there's other things I want to do."
"Marriage is a gift, not a hindrance, Velvet."
What I wanted to say was: then why haven't you been married in the last six hundred years, Princess?
But all I found the courage to say was, "I just…want to see a little of the world, first."
"With the right partner, you still can."
"And with a foal, too?" I knew, even as I said it, that it was too far. Straying just a little too close to the cliff edge. Princess Celestia will tolerate many things, especially from the foals she has raised – but impertinence is not one of them.
Her eyes narrowed infinitesimally – such a minor change, but to somepony like me who grew up in a court where hundreds of ponies fixated on the weathervane of the tiny changes in that pleasantly smiling mask, it was easy enough to see.
The Princess was angry.
"Even then," she said. "Regardless, there is somepony your mother and I would like you to meet."
My heart plummeted right through my hooves and into the floor beneath. "But I–"
She was turning, beckoning and then out from an antechamber – no, surely not, she wouldn't, she wouldn't – comes a stallion with dark fur and a blazing golden cutie mark. Was he there the whole time?
He offers me a sheepish, reluctant smile, and Celestia beams.
"Twilight Velvet, this is–"
"–I know who he is."
Night Light. A couple of years below me. A quiet colt, awkward when we were teenagers, never more than a peripheral figure on the very outer fringes of my life–
–And, apparently, my intended husband.
"No." I shook my head. Backed my head. "No."
"Velvet–"
"--No!" And before I could fully stop and think about it, before the ramifications could sink in, I turned and bolted from the room.
Celestia didn't call me back. Of course she didn't. The Princess of Equestria, calling after an errant courtier like a baker in the street? Never.
She let me run, and she let me be.
For a week I cowered in my rooms. For a week she let me stew. Broiling in my own juices.
And then I received my summons to appear before the court. The message, phrased cleverly and hidden within something else, that I was no longer welcome. That because I would not marry where I was bid, I was no longer one of her treasured students.
I was…disgraced.
And now I am here. Walking away. Going…home, I suppose.
The streets of Canterlot file by, one by one. Unremarkable and unmemorable. White and gold, gold and white. Celestia oozes from the city's every pore.
And before I know what I am doing, I am turning away from the train station. I will not go home with my tail between my legs. No matter what my mother says, no matter what Celestia says, Viridian Hills can wait. It can all wait.
I break into a gallop. The sash of my robe flies loose, but I don't look back. Whoever wants it can stop to pick it up, because I won't.
I am going. I am going to be free.
My hooves strike sparks from the stone, and I am panting for breath. Life at court has not made me fit, has not equipped me for a life of adventure. But all that is going to change. I'm going to change it.
By the time I skid to a halt in front of the new-built airship port, my fur is slick with sweat. My carefully combed mane is in more disarray than it has been since I was an eight-year-old foal playing in the fields with my mother's underlings. I don't even want to know what state my robes are in – but I don't care.
"What can I do for you, your…Ladyship?" The mare behind the ticket counter regards me doubtfully.
"A ticket," I say breathlessly. "A ticket, please!"
Her eyebrows climb higher. "To where?"
Caught off-guard, all I can do is laugh. "I – I don't know. Anywhere!"
"You'll have to pick." She taps the board behind her, curiosity fading. In a place like this, seeing ponies and cargo from far-off lands arriving every day, an indecisive little noblepony is the least of her worries.
Eyes flickering over the names, I beam. Thunder Bluffs, Dreamhome Heights, Mount Aris, the Demerara Desert…these names are so new. Outside the bounds of anything I have experienced before.
I point. "That one."
She purses her lips and hoofs me the ticket. Then the gate is open, and I am through.
My life begins anew.
I wander through the dockyard until I find the right gangplank, and before I know it the deck is swaying beneath my feet.
The sky is wide and wild, and clouds roll endlessly overhead. The wind whips my mane, teasing it out of its careful curls, and for the first time in my life, I don’t care.
I am more than just a womb. I don't know what the Princess' interest in my progeny is, but I…I am not here to provide her with a student, nor my mother with an heir.
I am a pony. I am a person. I have a life of my own to live, and as I look at the jungle splayed out beneath my airship, a fierce smile splits my muzzle.
I am Twilight Velvet, and I am going to make my mark on this world.
