School of (Restoring) Harmony

Celestia paced her room anxiously that night. Something was deeply wrong. She could feel it in her deepest reaches, something was amiss with that student. She couldn’t keep her thoughts straight, at least not if she kept moving. She wandered circles around the small area dedicated to her study, wearing a pattern into the ornate rug and extinguishing the fire, getting sick of the endless cycle of hot and cold as she walked closer and further to it. She’d rather sit in the cold to think.

She took a seat at her desk to stop the nervous movement, and looked over its dark wood to an ornate brass paper holder. She sighed. Writing wouldn’t change much but it usually made her feel better. Maybe, if she was lucky, she might actually get some small clue from her counterpart this time. She could only hope as she started to write.

“Greetings again Solar Flare.” She spoke to herself. “No, that's too formal. What if she reads them far apart? ‘My Dear Counterpart’? No, she knows I’m not that fond of her.”

For all her experience, Celestia found herself struggling right now. Thoughts of what she had learned distracted her.

“Solar. I need your help.” No time for formalities. She wouldn’t mince words on this.

“My school has officially started sessions, and all the students have been gathered. I want to hope for the best but growing pains have already started to show. Fighting on the first day was expected. But I’ve come across a problem I was not prepared for.”

She wondered for a moment if it was really wise to share so much with an inter-dimensional despot. But if nothing else she had to be honest with herself, even other versions of herself.

“One of the students, Azure Star, is a complete mystery. I’ve tried to look into her background but there is no evidence of her ever existing in Canterlot or any of our allies. I even tried to reach out to Opaline of all ponies but she denies the Prench having any knowledge of such a pony’s existence. I thought it might help because her body type was lithe and stretched, like elite Prench Unicorn’s or-”

She didn’t want to finish that line. She didn’t want to think about what it meant. She didn’t want to include the subtle sparks glimmering in Azure’s blue mane or her blue-green eyes that looked so familiar. Solar Flare didn’t need to know that. If she found one, she would see it.

“It’s not typical to find a unicorn whose lineage is undocumented, but it’s the things she said that have me truly worried.”

Celestia thought about her own statement. It had grown unsettling how obsessed the Unicorns across each nation were with their bloodlines. Opaline’s table of ranks and obsession with Pedigree in Prance were starting to look more like Pony Husbandry than anything else these days, and the Griffish Isles weren’t far behind. Even Canterlot’s system of rings had gotten worse and worse since its introduction during the Interregnum. She’d have to do something about that later. Right now she had bigger concerns.

“Azure appears to be having visions. She described to me a prophetic dream that foretold the return of my sister, after her thousand years of exile. I know it was a vision because I had the same dream that night. She described seeing visions of the pass, charting the stars from the Observatory for a thousand years. The fact that I had done so myself, slipping up there every night to chart Luna’s progress is something I told no one, showed no one. But I cleansed the place of emotional residue before I opened the school. Even a powerful psychometric could not tap into it unless. ”

Celestia tried to fight back tears welling up in her eyes. She pulled out a picture hidden in her desk of her former protege, Sunset Shimmer. She looked to one still proudly on display of Cadance, and even at the pile of letters Twilight had sent her since leaving the palace two days ago. What if she was right? What would this mean? What about the other visions? She buried her face in her hooves and screamed into them. But the letter wasn’t finished, so she had to keep writing.

“I do not know if you will find a variant of her existing in your world. But please, if you find her there, or in any other reality, let me know. I need you to tell me this isn’t what I think it is. I need to know what to do about her. Please, Solar. Anything you find. -Celestia.”

She sat at her desk and thought about the letter. She considered for a moment if it wouldn’t be better to restart her fireplace and burn it. Asked herself why she neglected to mention Clockmaker and that his memories too had seeped into Azure’s mind. None of this was adding up. But she needed information, so she folded the letter, stuffed it into an envelope, stamped it and readied to deliver it to Solar Flare’s mirror. As she walked past her balcony, she looked up, to the heights of the mountains Canterlot was built on, to a secluded peak not far from the castle, barely visible unless you knew where to look, at the white walled haven and the shining observatory tower that adorned it.

“Best of luck. Twilight. I’m leaving this in your hooves for now.”