Seashell (print rewrite)

SEASHELL

Excerpt XVI
From the journal of Sunburst, September 22, YS 1329:

Now I know where Princess Twilight gets her well-practiced pleasant-but-distant demeanor, and it breaks my heart.

Other than that, the Summer’s End Ball was a huge success.

I got my mane done up in a fashionable style at one of the city’s best hairdressers, and slid myself into an incredible little red dress from one of Canterlot’s upscale boutiques that made my flank look amazing (if I do say so myself), and got to eat tasty snacks, and I was even asked to dance by a handsome stallion in a flawless tuxedo and then by a pretty mare in a dress even more spectacular than mine.

I can’t say I know the first thing about dancing, and I was kinda stiff and uninspired at it, but it doesn’t matter; at least I did well enough that none of them realized I was a guard on plain-clothes duty (if you can call the clothes at soiree like this ‘plain’) planted in the crowd.

There were a number of us from the guard mixed in with the guests. It was a way to balance out the need for security with needing to avoid the mood-killing effect of a festive event being watched over by guards in armor. It was also an interesting change of pace for those of us who had the opportunity to work a shift in silk party dresses and polite party-chatter instead of the usual chain-shirts and silent stares.

Of course I won’t say it was all peaches and cream. There’s always little issues to deal with at these things, like the middle-aged unicorn noblemare who kicked off the festivities with several back-to-back cocktails after having already clearly pre-gamed a bit before she’d even arrived. I tried to get her to slow her roll on imbibing, but she didn’t listen. At the pace she insisted on going it wasn’t long before I ended up awkwardly escorting her out of the palace while she stumbled her hoofsteps and leaned on me while complaining in slurred speech about how her husband doesn’t touch her ‘that way’ enough anymore, until I was able to get her into one of the coaches that had been retained for the occasion so she could be driven home safely. The coach-mare seemed perfectly happy to take her, the back-seat barf risk from a passenger in that kind of state apparently not even being a consideration. Services contracts for palace special events must pay really well.

Once she wakes up and gets over her hangover, I wonder if she’ll be mad about missing most of the party, or just relieved that somepony shooed her out before she could cause a big scene and end up in the blooper section of the social pages. Either way, I don’t think she’ll remember me. In another two days, I doubt I’ll really remember her, either.

I know who I will remember.

Not for the right reasons, but I will never forget her.

Celestia showed up.

I’d never seen her in person before. I’d also heard she almost never shows up to anything anymore. Somehow, some way, Princess Twilight must have convinced her. Maybe the fact that the Ball was on the equinox helped, with the day being so significant to a pony associated with the sun.

To say that Celestia is spectacular would be to say that white-hot molten steel is a bit warm.

Her legs alone are as long as most ponies are tall.

Her horn is a tower of purest, brightest marble, a long spire reaching for the sky.

Her wings, broad and white as clean snow, arrayed in huge primaries, made me think of a swan, if a swan was elevated from a mean fowl of the lake to the heights of all the most noble facets the soul of a pony can display.

But some part of the swan was still in her.

I could tell it was when she descended the grand staircase from the 2nd floor VIP green rooms to join the guests on the ballroom floor, gliding down the plush red carpeting taking smooth, even steps at a deliberate pace, not hesitating but not rushed.

She waded and swam among the encircling nobles flowing around her, shaking hooves and exchanging greetings with calm eyes and an unwavering placating smile. “How are you, Lord Fancypants? It’s been some years, hasn’t it?” and “Lady Maple Glade, how wonderful to see you again. Is the syrup business treating you well?” and so on emanated from her as she navigated them, engagingly measured pleasantries feeding the parasocial connections she cultivated out of a thousand years of necessity and habit as she swam, the greatest of swans plying her way around on the waters of power.

Most of the noble rabble were content to take the morsel she’d throw to them and then move aside to let the next in line get their bite of smalltalk.

Not Princess Twilight, and not just because a princess is due more than a mere cordial greeting from one of her coequals. She wanted more. She wanted something real.

I saw such longing as she stuck by Celestia’s side. I saw her face light up with joy to be in the tall white princess’s presence and speak with her in a way an old friend would, and darken with every interruption by another schmoozing noble chitter-chattering about the season’s fashion, or just ‘casually’ mentioning something about that ‘silly little trade tariff,’ or whatever else.

I saw her fawning over Celestia’s attention, and I knew when I saw it that I was watching history repeat itself: Princess Twilight had revered Celestia as a student, and she still did now. In some very important ways, Student Twilight becoming Princess Twilight didn’t mean she had ever really gotten over the need for her teacher’s love. I could see her drinking in every second she could, hanging on to every word, craving for every approving smile. Being elevated to the top and then being left there had left her alone, without the presence of the family she’d found along the way.

She was starving for that companionship from somepony again.

She had been for a long, long time.

For years, she’d had to deny herself, settling for whatever secret little scraps she could get in the few moments she could find with a real friend and nopony else watching and expecting her to be a princess instead of a real pony.

Watching Celestia handle the nobles swarming around her, keeping them at a distance, managing them with such adroit skill at keeping up the screen of separation between her public face and her real person, I saw just where Twilight’s Proper Princess façade had come from. She was a brilliant student, and along with everything else, she’d learned this, too. She’d learned it from the very best, from a swan with the practiced mastery of a thousand years of being so thoroughly alone on the lake of her kingdom.

I felt such sadness, such a wrenching, aching pain in my heart, when I finally put it all together and understood this part of the story – when I finally realized how deeply this had hurt them both.

A lot of things suddenly made a lot more sense, and it was crushing.

It got worse around midnight, when Celestia had to bow out and take her leave from the Ball, leaving Princess Twilight utterly alone again.

She was still surrounded by the crowd, of course, the throng of the nobility still enjoying the party, as they would be into the small hours of the morning yet. But she was alone now, without her teacher, and beneath her brave, smiling party face, it was obvious how deeply she felt it and despaired.

After Celestia’s departure, I watched with growing concern while the princess sullenly downed three flutes of champagne in ten minutes and then got most of the way through number four before one of the other guards in the crowd discreetly pulled her aside, and she excused herself politely to one of the private areas of the castle, away from the crowd.

She didn’t return to the party, probably realizing that at this point just turning in and sleeping it off would be the wiser move.

I had to stay to the end, until the last stragglers were herded out at about 3am. Being on duty, I didn’t have the benefit of being able to try to take the edge off with three or four flutes of champagne, or maybe something stronger. All I could do was keep it professional until the job was done, then go home, peel off my dress, collapse into bed, and cry myself to sleep.

But hey, the social gossip columns all agree, it was the high-society party of the season: a splendid time was had by all and the whole event went off without a hitch. It’s unanimous, the Summer’s End Ball was a huge success. And who am I to disagree?
 
 
Enough about success for today.