You stand at the water's edge.
You stand at the water's edge. Feeling the waves sucking at your feet. Pulling away a little more sand from beneath you with every movement of the water. Sinking you deeper into the silvery-grey substrate.
You think of her. When do you not? With her wings and her spiral horn. Her crown and her kingdom. She is everything you aren’t.
The water laps at your ankles now. Your shins. Your knees. You're sinking deeper and still you cannot move. It's like you're rooted in place. Your toes have become wooden, elongated and knotted with bark. They have sunk beneath the sand to the bedrock below and now you are anchored in place.
Three thousand years. A reign of three thousand years, encompassing almost every intelligent creature in that world. A face that has been painted and praised by a thousand different artists from a thousand different cultures. A name that is a synonym for all things good and pure. The sun itself. The closest thing that you have ever seen with your own eyes to a god.
What are you? What could you ever be, in comparison to that?
Nothing.
A tiny, insignificant speck of nothing.
A princess. A principal. It's some sort of cosmic joke. Your entire life, reduced to a punchline. Creation itself having a big old laugh at your expense.
When you first heard about the other world, you were excited. You heard of your students coming face to face with their dopplegangers, forming unlikely friendships. You heard of one girl – poor Applejack's other self – who was able to visit, briefly, the parents she had lost. You were intrigued, eager. Imagined meeting your twin, meeting Lulu's. Imagined seeing Mom again, if she was still there in that mirror world.
What a naive, trusting idiot you were. Blasé to the point of stupidity.
You had heard the stories of the strange new force of nature from their world. The 'magic'. You knew that the first Twilight Sparkle you met was not from this world. You knew that she was some sort of wizard, a dignitary in the other universe by virtue of her incredible power.
But you did not expect that your own mirror image would be so much more. That it would be you who was the reflection was not a possibility that had ever crossed your mind.
“Celestia?” said the girl with the fiery hair, eyes wide.
“Yes?”
“Is that…you, Princess?”
“I’m sorry,” you said, putting on your most understanding expression for the poor confused girl, “I wasn’t aware we had a new student starting today. I’m Principal Celestia.”
She just stared, and you did your best to hold the smile.
“What’s your name, dear?”
“Sunset Shimmer.”
“Are you one of our new transfer students?”
“I…I…”
You’d never seen such a bewildered child. It pulled at your heartstrings. Made you remember when you had been the child shivering in her shiny new shoes, stepping through the door of your new classroom.
With the waves kissing the joints of your knees, you wonder how long ago it was since she felt that way. How many millennia have passed since Princess Celestia experienced doubt?
“Are you new here in town?” Perhaps returning to something easier would be best.
“No — yes. My family, we just moved here.”
“And did your old school put in the transfer paperwork?”
“No, I…don’t think so.”
“Well, if you talk to my assistant Raven Inkwell, she’ll be able to help you. The school year’s only just started, and I don’t think we’re quite at capacity yet.”
She started when you said that name. Even then, you thought it was odd. “Raven’s here, too?”
“Ah, do you know her? You’ll find her desk opposite Vice-Principal Luna’s office.”
And when she heard that name, she froze up altogether. The color fled from her face, leaving her more of a sickly grey than yellow. “What did you say?”
“Opposite the Vice-Principal’s office.”
“But Luna’s here? She’s not — she isn’t—?”
“She’s here, yes. Her office is down the hall. Do you feel alright, dear? Perhaps you’d better go to the nurse’s office rather than to Raven Inkwell.”
Tears filled her eyes. “But you asked me to — you said I had to—”
She crumpled in her chair, and you had seen enough. You rose from your chair, circled the desk, and put your arm around her shoulders. A child was in distress; the questions could wait. “It’s alright, Sunset. It’s alright.”
The tide is coming in quickly. Too quickly. The memory fades as the waves brush your waist. The sand lies heavy and cold against your feet.
It kept you up at night, the distress that poor girl was in, seemingly induced by your sister’s name. By the mere sight of you. What had you done to deserve that?
But now, three years later, after your own foray into that other world — now you understand. It was not you she saw in the office that day, but the other one. The person that casts the shadow that is you.
The true Celestia.
Cold as steel, the water penetrates your shirt, plunging its blade into your ribs.
As clearly as if she was here now, you see the look of curiosity on her face. Of wonder, almost. As though you are a thing she can gawk at. A mere memory made flesh.
“Look, Luna,” she said, her voice melodious as silver bells. “Do you remember how it felt to be so young?”
And her sister looked down at you and laughed, like you were a VHS pulled out of storage and put on for her amusement.
“We hadst forgotten how thou used to look, with a mane of only one color!”
And you stood there, in your new dress that you had brought specially for the occasion, made by the pony counterpart of your student Rarity, and you felt like a joke. All the joy you had felt at your pretty white unicorn body with its pastel-pink mane, the childhood fantasies come to life, the wonder of this new world; all of it withered and died.
You went there in good faith, full of hope, and they laughed. Everything you are, your life’s work, your essence — and it was nothing more than a ten-minute novelty for a god who shares your face.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, to have ever gone there. To have ever thought it would be a good idea. Something that would assuage your doubts about your place in the world after hearing the stories of this other you.
Stupid, and naive, just like always. Lulu always did say you needed a dose of healthy suspicion.
The water kisses your collarbones now. How long have you stood here? The tide has come quickly, while you stand transfixed. Thinking of the one who is more you than you are.
And then you realise you are cold. Cold to the bone. Your arms are numb, and your fingers…you look at them as they float there beneath the surface, pale and wrinkled like worms long dead. When did they last move? An hour? More?
You have floated here in body and mind, dwelling on your other more real self, and it has been far too long.
Slowly, you turn for the shore. But your feet stick in place, laden by layer on layer of sand. Your limbs drag. Half-frozen, half-gone, and you wonder, after all, what is the point? What is the use? You will die here, in the waters of Canterlot Bay, and who will ever miss you? A few children; your sister. You do not matter. Not like she does. You do not hold the fate of worlds in your hand.
It would have been better if the mirror had never opened. If you had never chosen to pass through. You could have lived out your life in happy ignorance, if you had never realised just how little you mattered.
If you had not known that you were the shadow.
The beach seems so far away, now. You lie back in the water, letting it cushion you. It pillows your head and cradles you close, and even the cold recedes. It is kind, the sea. Everyone is faceless in the face of such vastness. Such cold, inhuman depth. Even the sun goddess might be quenched, if she were to swim deep enough.
For this little splinter of her there is no need to swim deep at all.
Music plays faintly at the back of your mind. The lullaby Mom used to sing when Lulu was a baby. Meant for her, not for you, but you listened anyway. So many things that were never meant for you.
“Celestia!” You hear a distant cry. “Celestia!”
It is almost tinny in its quietness, and you turn your head away. The music is better. Softer. Kinder. Beautiful melody in your mother’s half-remembered voice.
The sky above you is growing so dim.
Splashing. Who is making all that noise? It’s…rude. Can’t they see you’re almost asleep?
“Celestia! Celestia, look at me!”
Fingers close roughly on your arm, dragging you roughly through the water. You try to mumble a protest, but your lips are slow and stiff.
Her hair floats like liquid fire on the water as she shakes you.
“Principal Celestia, please wake up!”
Sunset Shimmer.
Her cries become a rhythmic chant as she tows you in her wake. “Oh no oh no oh no oh Celestia!” And you’re not sure which Celestia she means; the goddess to which she pleads for mercy or the human alongside her.
Both your selves have tutored her. Both of you have loved her, in your way. Or at least you have, as you love all your students. Can the other you love? Could anything love, that lived so long? It would be like trying to love ants.
You try to imagine it, and in some strange, slippery way, you cease to be there, floating in the water as Sunset sobs into your hair. You are in Canterlot. The other Canterlot. In a palace instead of a school, on a throne instead of a swivel chair.
They crawl around you, the ants that worship you, and you try to feel something for them. But they die so quickly, and you are so old. And then you see her, the ant with the white thorax and the pink antennae. And then you are her, but you are also the woman on the throne. And you feel the terror of the ant and the indifference of the goddess as you raise her hand to crush you.
“Celestia! Come on, focus!” Sunset Shimmer is bending over you. Tears mix freely with the seawater on her cheeks.
She hammers both her fists into your stomach and you retch as a gout of ocean blossoms from your throat. It burns in your gullet and vomit follows after, but then you come back to yourself, crouched on the beach, sodden and sobbing, and your student kneels beside you, still trembling. You are no longer the ant, or the goddess.
You are you, pale shadow that you are.
“What were you doing out there?”
“…Swimming.”
A weak lie, and you both know it.
“Principal Celestia, why…why would you ever do that?”
You look at your fingers, digging into the sand. Still pale, fleshy worms. “I’m not…”
Like the sun that is her namesake, she blazes up, fierce and hot. “You’re the best teacher I ever had.”
“But…you knew her.”
She sniffs hard. “I did. And I like you best.”
“Thank you,” you whisper at last.
