“Alright, what was that?” Twilight grumbled tiredly as there was a crash from downstairs the next morning.

“Alright everyone just stop!” Spike’s voice was heard.

“Great, the crusaders are probably destroying the library...” Twilight groaned. Celestia giggled from next to her and snuggled into her.

“I’d hate to lose my cuddle buddy but we should probably check on them.” Celestia said.

“Agreed...” Twilight sighed.

Once downstairs, they found a fallen bookshelf and Spike literally tying the three teens to chairs.

“Do I want to know?” Twilight asked as she snapped and put the shelf back into it’s place and re-shelved it.

“They’ve been driving me crazy all morning, begging me to let them help me get the library set up so I had them do inventory on the books on that shelf and they tried to climb it instead of using the step ladder...” Spike said.

“Were any of you hurt?” Twilight asked after a nice facepalm.

“No miss Twilight.” They said in unison.

“You all need to go home now. Untie them, Spike, and don’t worry about breakfast we’ll get something while we’re out.” Twilight said.

“Actually I should be returning soon. Would you care to join me in Canterlot for a day or two Twilight, Spike?” Celestia said.

“I’d love to!” Twilight said happily.

“Somebody’s gotta keep this place going, I’ll stay. Besides, I’ve got a date with Rarity tonight.” Spike said.

“Oh really? Hope it goes well. I’ll be back on Wednesday, and if not I’ll write.” Twilight said.

“Wait, wouldn’t you need to prepare?” Celestia asked.

“I don’t think so, if it’s just for a day or two I should be fine.” Twilight said with a shrug.

“Besides if she were to pack or anything it’d take a day or two until she’s done.” Spike said, hopping onto the stool at the front desk of the library.

“Whatever Spike. See you later, come on girls.” Twilight said.

“I don’t want to go back there yet.” Scootaloo said as they walked to the orphanage. AJ and Rarity had thanked them for returning Applebloom and Sweetie Belle, but Scootaloo didn’t have a family.

“Why not? they don’t neglect you or anything, do they?” Celestia asked.

“No, the staff is amazing... It’s just the other orphans kind of ignore me and I feel lonely there. I’ve been there since I could remember, most kids get adopted within a year or two. It’s been at least Ten now.” Scootaloo said. Twilight was about to say something encouraging, but the familiar sound of a certain flamboyantly colored Valkyrie about to crash rang from right above them.

“WHOA WHOA WHOA LOOK OUT BELOW!” They heard. They all stepped aside and cringed as Rainbow Dash just narrowly avoided smashing into the road, but wound up smashing into a tree george of the jungle style.

“Uh... you alright?” Twilight asked when the woman peeled herself from the trunk of the tree.

“I’ve had worse... Protip, do NOT try cloud diving while hungover.” Dash said, rubbing a particularly sore spot on her cheek.

“That was so cool!” Scootaloo said, her wings rustling in excitement.

“If you think my crashes are cool, you should see when it works.” Dash said with a grin.

“Can I see it right now?” Scootaloo asked with pleading eyes.

“Well duh, i never leave a practice routine without doing it!” Dash said.

“Go ahead, make sure she doesn’t hurt herself.” Twilight said to the teen. Scootaloo squealed in a fangirl-like manner and practically clung to Dash as she took off. Though Scootaloo was a shaky flier, training with Dash had really helped.

“Rainbow Dash would make a good mother for that girl, don’t you think?” Celestia said.

“I’ve talked to her about that a lot. She’s doing a lot of training for Wonderbolts tryouts, and until she gets in she won’t have the concentration for anything else. Her exact words were something along the lines of ‘I love that little twerp to death, but even if I tried I couldn’t think about anything but the wonderbolts for long enough to be a mom.’.” Twilight said.

“Very responsible I daresay. Well, I’ve got a carriage scheduled to arrive soon. Shall we head back?” Celestia suggested.

“Hm, not yet... I just realized something.” Twilight said, looking a bit nervous.

“What’s that?” Celestia asked.

“We never told spike we’re dating.” Twilight said.

“Oh he knows, we talked while I waited for you to get out of the shower.” Celestia said.

“Oh. Nevermind then.” Twilight said, trusting the princess.

When they arrived back at the library, there were a few guards ready with a carriage. One of them had a letter, though.

‘Sister, something very strange occurred last night while you are away. Dawn split from me again, but this time she was not a nightmare. Apparently she had managed to dispel that beast and has been gathering her strength. I... I’m not alone anymore. Please hurry back, she wants to apologize to you. -Luna’

The letter read. Celestia showed it to Twilight and it confused the girl as they got into the carriage.

“Twilight, what I am about to tell you is something near to me and my sister’s heart, so personal it was removed from all history books. You have to promise me that you won’t even think of it when speaking to others.” Celestia started after a while. Twilight swore with every fiber of her being and Celestia continued.

“A divine being, like Luna and I, is not just a random thing, nor is it inherited. It is something you earn, or in some cases steal. Very few accomplished scholars, like yourself, knew this already though.” Celestia said, Twilight nodding. “A long time ago, both Luna and I had a significant other. My partner happened to be Discord and, well, you can guess how that turned out. He went mad with power and the rest is history. Luna’s partner was a woman named Dawn.

She didn’t go mad with power, but the power drove her mad. When a mortal partners with a Divine being, you see, the partner ascends. That power can lead to a great many things, Dawn would have been ripped apart if Luna hadn’t absorbed her very being into her body.” Celestia continued.

“Absorbed her very being?” Twilight asked.

“It’s old, dark magic. It absorbs one’s life force and consciousness into your body. In this case, though, it saved Dawn from being torn apart. It could not, however, save her mind from being corrupted and twisted into a Nightmare.” Celestia explained.

“Wait, this Dawn woman was Nightmare Moon?” Twilight asked. Celestia nodded and continued.

“She waited and gathered her strength until Luna was at her most vulnerable, when she was filled with jealousy and grief, and overtook her consciousness. I couldn’t destroy my sister, I couldn’t even consider it, so I banished her to the moon to give her time to regain herself and to await the birth of the new bearers of the elements of harmony, as we had lost the right to use them. The nightmare made a final stand and lost, as you know, when the banishment was over and Luna regained herself. Now it seems that Dawn has also regained herself and has finally gathered enough strength to be her own person again.” Celestia explained.

“So, for all these years, it’s been like an internal power struggle?” Twilight asked. Celestia nodded and looked towards where Canterlot was on the horizon. “What she said in the letter... After all this time do you think they’d be back together so soon?” Twilight asked after a while.

“Without a doubt. If this happened last night, then i imagine they shared a bed as we did. They were far closer than you could ever imagine. Now that I think of it, the woman looks a lot like you did during your ‘dark’ phase. Quite a coincidence.” Celestia answered, ending with a giggle. Time had flown and, while Twilight was giving her an odd look, she noticed that they were a minute or so away from landing in the palace courtyard.

“What do you think they’re doing right now?” Twilight asked, choosing to see the woman for herself before she made any judgement whatsoever.

“Well, she offered to cover for me during Day Court so they should be just inside. The nobility probably had a fit, but I trust our guards to quiet it down.” Celestia said happily as they left the carriage. Her smile fell and her wings shifted uneasily as a great commotion was heard through the heavy doors. When they entered, they found seemingly all of Canterlot’s nobility crowded around the throne area, screaming and yelling less than pleasant things at a startled unfamiliar woman and an agitated Luna. Luna looked up and, noticing the two, gave them a special look. They quickly cast a noise dampening spell to brace themselves.

“WILL YOU ALL JUST BE SILENT! MY SISTER HAS RETURNED SO STOP YOUR INSIGNIFICANT SQUABBLING!” screamed the magically amplified ‘royal canterlot voice’. Startled, the crowd turned and spread to allow Celestia access to her throne.. There was a ring of night guards between the crowd and the two women, but they showed no sign of the doubt, hate or even uneasiness the crowd showed.

Celestia, with Twilight in tow, quickly made her way to her sister.

“Dawn, it’s been far too long. I’m happy to see you as yourself again.” Celestia said happily, embracing the girl, who really did look nearly twin to Twilight. The only difference was their taste in attire, makeup and the fact that Dawn’s hair was black with a midnight blue streak. There was also the fact that she had black leathery wings on her back.

“It is better than you could ever imagine. I missed both of you, and who is this?” The girl asked, looking at her near-twin. Meanwhile, the crowd watched in silence. They trusted their princess, at least they wanted to. There were plenty of ignorant morons in the mix that wanted nothing more than to continue screaming, but they dare not interrupt BOTH of the princesses.

“This is Twilight Sparkle. My Apprentice, student and recent partner.” Celestia said. Ignoring the crowd’s awed reaction, Twilight stuck her hand out to shake.

“I remember you now... I tried to kill you last time we met, you trust me so easily?” Dawn asked.

“My princess knows and trusts you so there’s nothing I need to worry about.” Twilight retorted. Dawn smiled and shook the hand.

“Glad to hear it. I’m going to have to spend some time in the library alongside my own Princess to get back into the loop. Last time I was coherent, if the nobility acted this way they’d be thrown out.” Dawn said, turning towards the crowd. Said crowd had no idea how to react to all of this new information.

“I think that suspending Day Court and tonight’s Night Court would be wise. No point in wasting time. Twilight Sparkle and myself are in a romantic relationship starting yesterday, an old friend has returned and has entered a romantic relationship with my sister. We’ll probably take questions or something similar to that tomorrow, but for today I think we should spend some time away from our duties for just a little while.” Celestia explained. She could see the torrents of questions coming and quickly ushered the others out of the room.

“Well that went better than expected.” Luna said.

“What exactly was expected?” Twilight asked.

“No idea, but definitely something worse than that.” Dawn replied, earning some light laughter from them.

“You may look like me but we’re pretty different when it comes to pretty much everything else.” Twilight said.

“How so?” Dawn asked.

“My sister’s student is a very studious and, excuse me, obsessive student. If I remember correctly, you have a thing for lists, correct?” Luna said.

“Well... You can never be too prepared... I’ve gotten out of the habit of making a list for everything, though, and whenever I’m not studying I still spend lots of times with my friends so it’s not like I’m an antisocial shut-in.” Twilight said.

“Well good. There is such a thing as too much studying.” Celestia said.

“Well I’m not the complete opposite, but pretty close. Luna and I used to sneak off and skirt our duties every now and then to enjoy the moonlight or have a random adventure.” Dawn said.

“I’ve had a few of those in the past, though they were kind of to save Ponyville or Canterlot or Equestria itself...” Twilight said.

“Luna has been telling me of your deeds. You’ve caught quite a good one, Celestia.” Dawn said, grinning at the princess.

“I’m going to have to agree with you on that one.” Celestia giggled, gently bumping Twilight with her side. Twilight smiled and rubbed the back of her head.

“Well, all of that commotion was exhausting... I need to take a nap if I’m going to be here for dinner. We already had lunch, so you don’t need to worry about that.” Luna said, grabbing Dawn’s hand.

“Alright. Goodnight sister, Dawn. Twilight and I are going to try and enjoy a bit of peace and possibly some lunch.” Celestia said, looking at Twilight for confirmation.

“That sounds perfectly fine.” Twilight agreed.

Author's Note

So I was going through my Gdocs and I found this chapter just sitting there, finished.
have that