Pinkie Pie was sad.

It was a rare enough feeling that she felt it deserved its own sentence. She’d had a lot of near misses with sadness recently. When Twilight had blown up after finishing that spell, she had briefly considered flirting with a permanent case of the blues. But now, Twilight was back! And an alicorn! And soon to be a princess! And soon to be coronated! And who didn’t love a good coronation, even if Pinkie Pie wasn’t the one planning it.

She figured she should be sad about having been kicked out of the royal kitchens, but the joke was on them, she had already managed to bake for Twilight what was, in her opinion, the best Coronation Cake ever.

But no, that didn’t make her sad. And it wasn’t the fact that her Pinkie sense had given her an itchy nose and her hoof fell asleep shortly afterwards, which meant that she had to throw the entire Coronation Cake in the trash.

No point in baking a cake for someone who didn’t want it, her Pinkie sense had told her.

Oh. That was it. Twilight didn’t want her cake. Twilight didn’t want any cake. And a Twilight Sparkle that didn’t want cake was a Twilight Sparkle that was down in the dumps indeed.

Well if Twilight was upset then it was up to Pinkie Pie, as the newly appointed Princess Cheerer-Upper to officially cheer up the soon-to-be newly appointed princess. It didn’t matter if that title was something she had made up five seconds ago, she took her royal duties seriously.

“Twiiiiilllliiiiiiiiight! I think somebody needs cheering uuuuuuuup!” She hollered, stepping into one of Canterlot Castle’s many many studies. Sure enough, Twilight had transformed it into a makeshift sanctuary. Books sat in piles, stacks, and mounds, and in the center of it all sat a lavender alicorn, lost in concentration amongst the multiple tomes.

“Pinkie, I didn’t tell anyone where I was.”

“Yep!”

“And it’s 10pm.”

“Yep!”

“And you managed to find me… how, exactly?”

“Irreverence for story conventions!” Pinkie said proudly.

“Huh?”

“Twilight, come on, you know me by now.” She plopped herself in front of her friend's study material, determined to take up the bulk of her attention like an oversized pink cat. “And you know that I know when you’re upset. And I know you’re upset.”

Twilight blinked “I beg your pardon?”

“You’re sad about becoming a princess and I came to cheer you up!”

“Oh Pinkie, I’m not upset over that anymore.”

“You- You’re not?”

“No see, it’s because I don’t have to be a princess!”

“But you’re an alicorn now! Alicorns have to be princesses! Or princes, I guess.”

“Equestria’s had a lot of ponies that have ascended to become alicorns throughout its history, but none of them were royalty.” Twilight countered.

“They weren’t princesses?”

Twilight scooched closer, levitating the various books she’d be reading. “It’s fascinating. I theorize that, as Equestria became more peaceful, and magic became better understood, there simply was less opportunity for ponies to prove themselves worthy. But centuries ago you’d have alicorns popping up all over the place and all the time. Well I mean, comparatively speaking.”

“Then where are they now? You’d think Celestia would mention a few alicorns waiting in the wings, bet those guys would have been useful one or two times in the past,” Pinkie looked around. She wished she hadn’t thrown out the cake, now she could use it.

“They’re um… they’re all dead.” Twilight looked down sadly. “Being an alicorn doesn’t make one invincible. Or grant them caution, apparently. But the main thing is they weren’t princesses!”

“I don’t think that’s the point of the book-”

“See here, Indominia the Boisterous became an alicorn after stopping a landslide with her magic. Sure she died ten years later when a living mountain sat on her, but she could hardly be blamed for that.”

“And see here? Chronosia the Persistent ascended after pioneering a whole field of time spells, including the foundation of modern timeturning as we know it! But she wasn’t a princess, even though Celestia let her found the Royal Timekeeper Society.”

“And?”

“What?”

“Well, where is she now?”

“Oh uh…” Twilight scratched the back of her neck awkwardly. “She tried to develop a spell that would allow her to witness the birth of our universe, or so she claimed. Nobody knows because when she cast it she immediately exploded.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh but look. Lux Lantern? He was an Earth pony that managed to save Equestria from a plasmoid invasion and ascended, but he remained part of his family’s lantern making business until his untimely death by-” She turned the page. Both ponies stared in horror, before Pinkie slammed the book close, her face green. Twilight tried not to puke.

“Ew ew ew ew!!! Just tell ponies next time, we don’t need a picture!” Pinkie said, push the book as far away from her as she could.

“Why would they even ILLUSTRATE that?!” Twilight shrieked.

“Put a warning label on it next time, Mister Printer!”

Both ponies looked at each other, then started giggling.

“Celestia, I can’t believe they put that in a book.” Twilight laughed.

“In full color!”

“In full color too! It’s not even a photo, someone had to ink all that in!”

“Hope they got hazard pay!”

Pinkie calmed down finally, having realized something else.

“What about Cadance? She’s a princess AND she wasn’t born an alicorn.”

Twilight flipped through another book’s pages, shaking her head and pointing to a passage on the page.

“Cadance isn’t a princess because Celestia took her in, she’s a princess because she’s- see here, she’s the direct descendant of Princess Amore, the Crystal Empire’s ruler before Sombra took over.”

“The point is that every Princess in Equestria was either related to the Royal Sisters in some way, adopted or not, or royalty from another pony dynasty. And… I’m not.”

“You did call Celestia ‘mom’ once.”

“That was an accident! I was eight years old! And I told you that in confidence when I was drunk.”

“I’ve kept that secret as safe as Grandma Pie’s rock soup recipe, Twilight. It just kindaaaa sounds like to me you’re making the princess annexing the Crystal Empire the same thing as you getting rewarded for saving the world like…” She paused, thinking. “Forty six times?”

“Celestia didn’t annex the Crystal Empire. She merely restored the rightful princess to its throne.”

“The rightful princess.”

“Yes.”

“That Celestia found.”

“Yes!”

“And raised and put in charge of the empire alongside the former captain of the Equestrian Royal Guard.”

“...Yes?”

“So she annexed the Crystal Empire.”

“Pinkie!”

“Twilight!” She grinned back at her friend.

“Are you trying to distract me? There’s a bigger issue here than the Crystal Empire’s politics.”

Grabbing the book in her mouth, Pinkie plopped it on her head, turning the pages with her tongue.

“It’s all politics, silly! I’m just kind of confused why you wouldn’t WANT to be a princess. Come to think of it, why did you not expect to be a princess? Your element turned into a crown the first time you put it on. Seems like a big destiny thing to me.”

“Because I didn’t—” She took the book back from Pinkie, wiping some of her slobber off. “What if it changes things in Ponyville? Between my friends? Between… between us.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing!” Twilight blushed. “I just… I just wanted to study magic and hang out with you girls. I don’t want ponies to suddenly see me as… as something I’m not.”

“A world-saving super pony that wields a super artifact that’s also her crown?”

“You’re acting like nothing’s changed!”

“Because it hasn’t Twilight!” Pinkie pulled the book back. “You’re still you, silly wings or not. You’re still Twilight and you’re still our friend. Lookie here, the first thing you did was to try and dig through some old book to find a solution to a problem you over-imagined. And here I am, good old Pinkie Pie, making you see the silver lining to this little raincloud.”

She flipped through some of the pages, pointing at various articles.

“See, look at this. You could mark places as national historical landmarks and they’d get allll kinds of benefits. Golden Oaks would be like, some big important thing and look here—”

She flipped to another page.

“Say here when it comes to document requisitions you get-” She squinted. “Special dispensation regarding sensitive information and waitlist priority. Neat! Looks like you could just waltz right in and read Bananacus’ Instantaneum without having to do anything but flash your… princess card. Or something.”

Twilight’s eyes nearly bulged out of her sockets. “The Instantaneum? The entire collection?”

“That’s what they gave as an example,” Pinkie said, pointing to the book. Twilight grabbed it, staring at the passage.

“T-that’s— There's a fifteen year waitlist for just one volume. I could just go in and read the entire work?”

“See!” Pinkie beamed. “You got so concerned over the bridges you might burn that you forgot to look for the doors you will be opening.”

“I could read Nazbor the Leaned’s original necromantic pathfinding treatises. Or the forbidden Thirty Seventh Lesson of Milk Taker! You can’t normally read those unless you’re over sixty years old!”

“Exactly! So… better?” Pinkie pushed her head underneath Twilight’s chin, letting her cotton candy hair puff up around Twilight’s muzzle.

She smells like coffee cake… thought Twilight.

“Better,” Twilight sighed, smiling. “But I still want to at least bring this up to the Princesses.”

“So long as you remember that this is your big day and your big reward. NOT a punishment.”

“I know.”

“Promise me you’ll give it a chance.”

“I pinkie promise.”

“And let me bake you a Coronation Cake?”

“Can you—”

“I can make it a coffee cake.”

“...Okay.”

“Yay!” Hopping out from underneath her alicorn friend, Pinkie Pie moved to the door. “You got a lot taller, by the way. I like it.”

“Pinkie…”

“Yessssss?” The pink mare turned back towards her.

“You had that book on your head for about a minute. How did you manage to read the entire section on royal privileges? That’s forty pages.”

“Pssh! Speed reading’s an essential party planning skill. Watch!” Pinkie walked over to a nearby novel, and slapped it on her head before shaking it off, pages flipping around as the book landed perfectly back on the shelf.

“Oh.” Pinkie said morosely.

“What? What?” Twilight asked.

“It was all just a metaphor for aging and the inevitable passage of time in the face of an unloving universe. That’s sad.”

“P-pinkie. That was a three hundred page novel!”

“Yeah but the prose was D.R.Y.! Leave the thesaurus at the zoo, nobody’s impressed, am I right? I hope that author finds a girlfriend.”

Twilight sat there, stunned. It had taken her a week to get through that particular tome, and she liked the prose in it.

“Pinkie… you’re amazing.”

“Huh?”

Twilight blushed. “I mean. T-that’s amazing.”

“Aw, thanks!” And she trotted out of the library, leaving Twilight with a flushed face and a lingering smell of baked goods.

“Tonight.”

Celestia looked up from her morning tea, over to her sister sitting next to her. Traditionally, the Royal Table of the Royal Sisters had two thrones at each end where each would sit. Given that the table was over forty feet long, they usually opted to sit next to each instead. It saved time and saved having to shout “WHAT DID YOU SAY? HUH?” over and over again, both of which violated several Princess Rules.

Tonight, Luna had said. The night of Twilight’s coronation. There could only be one thing she was talking about.

“You’re sure, Luna? You said you wanted to wait until you were ready. Are you?”

Her younger sister shifted nervously. Celestia sympathized.

“I am… No. I am not ready, Tia. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready. I should have brought it up at Cadance’s wedding, or at—”

“Nightmare Night?” finished Celestia. “That’s why you said you had gone to Ponyville, wasn’t it? It wasn’t just about the festivities.”

“I had traveled there in hopes of breaking the news, but I suppose I became… sidetracked. Perhaps there will be other chances,” Luna looked down at her cup and shrugged. “But how does the saying go? Might as well hack the leg off and get used to the peg?”

“Who said that?”

“He did. Sometimes,” Luna said, sadly.

“Ah.”

They sat there in silence, until Luna spoke up.

“She’s going to want to abdicate.”

“I know,” Celestia replied simply.

“She’s going to be upset when I tell her.”

“I know.”

Luna hesitated, looking downcast. “Will you… will you come with me? I don’t think I can do this alone.”

Celestia wrapped a wing around her.

“I’m here, little sister. Always.”

As far as coronations went, Twilight had found her own coronation to be perfectly above average. It was also, technically, the only coronation she had been to. She assumed most of them involved the same amount of singing, the same amount of uncomfortable formalwear, and the same amount of socializing with foreign and domestic dignitaries.

Endless socializing. Endless, endless celebrating. All useless smiles and useless small talk and uselessly trying to remember the names of nobles who she was pretty sure not even a week ago wouldn’t have given her a second glance, Celestia’s favored student or not.

But this was what being a princess was.

This is what being a princess would always be.

Try as she might, each drop of socialization eroded away her promise to Pinkie Pie, bit by bit. Never had she felt less like she wanted to be at her own party than now.

Finally, after hours of what felt like the most grueling marathon she’d ever run, it ended. Guests filtered out, and even her friends returned to their own rooms for the night. Exhausted, Twilight found herself alone in a ballroom with nothing but her thoughts and worries, staring at the floor as she tried to work up the courage to make sense of her own mind.

Stars, she was tired.

The doors at the end opened as quietly as two enormous bronze slabs could open, letting in two more of Equestria’s alicorn royalty. Quietly, as quietly as two enormous immortal ponies could move, they glided over to her.

Celestia looked at Luna, Luna looked at Celestia, and each of them wrapped a wing around her, pulling her into a light hug.

Her mentor finally spoke. “We wanted to wait until everypony had gone by, Twilight. There’s things we need to discuss.”

Twilight said nothing.

“It’s a lot of work, isn’t it?”

She nodded.

“You did wonderfully, dear. This was the hard part, believe me.”

She shrugged. Celestia tried to put on her best smile.

“I’d hazard a guess that you’d simply like to get back to Ponyville right now, hmm?”

Did she? What did she want right now? If she was being really honest, she wanted to just be with her friends. Around Pinkie, of all ponies. Partying seemed like the last thing on her mind, but for some reason being around Pinkie didn’t feel like it’d be exhausting. It never was.

After all, the coronation cake had been coffee cake. And it tasted wonderful.

I gave it a chance. I promised her, and I did but—

She swallowed, and pushed the wings away.

I’m so sorry Pinkie, but all this isn’t me.

“I want to abdicate.”

The two remaining princesses exchanged a look with each other, Luna in particular giving her older sister a glance that seemed to read ‘You knew this was coming, now deal with it’ and nudging Celestia forward.

“Twilight, I know all of this is a big change for you. If you would listen—”

“Hold on a second, Princess. I know you’ve got some big speech prepared about responsibility and how I deserve this and I passed all your tests but let’s be honest, it’s one thing to make me an alicorn, and I won’t argue with that, but a princess? Nope, nuh uh.”

“Twilight.”

“No…. wait, wait. I’ve got a whole lecture prepared, if you’d give me a second,” blinking through her tiredness, she focused her magic and a few copies of the books she’d been studying popped into the room, hopefully scrubbed of any… images that maybe have been upsetting. She was certain Celestia probably had seen worse, given some of the swords on display in the royal armory, but there was no reason to cause undue stress.

“Me not being a princess wouldn’t get in the way of any sort of royal proclamations or upset precedent. If anything, me being a princess would be worse, can you imagine how many noble houses are going to be in an uproar once they realize what me being a princess would even entail. And more importantly it’s not like me being an alicorn means I have to be a princess, right? I mean you’ve got—” she floated over the pages to Celestia, who took them wordlessly. “More than a few ascended alicorns in Equestria’s history that never ended taking any sort of throne or crown or had to have those responsibilities or ended up having all their friends see them differently and never want to talk to them or have to contend with probably deadly court politics or be forced to entertain royal suitors that have weird chins and—”

Celestia raised an eyebrow. Twilight took a deep breath.

“What I mean is… I can’t do this. I know the coronation is over already, but I’m not a princess. I can accept being an alicorn, and all the preening that comes with it. But everything else? I’d uh…” She took off the crown. “I’d like to return it. It’s not mine.”

She smiled awkwardly as she finished her speech. She hadn’t practiced it, but she had definitely memorized it in its entirety the night before, including the Twilighting bit in the middle. She figured it made it sound more sincere.

But the princess didn’t look impressed, or even intrigued. She just looked nervous.

“Twilight… Your coronation doesn’t matter in that way.”

“What?” Twilight’s face fell.

“It’s a formality. A way to introduce you to society and legitimize any noble claims. The title and all that comes with it have… they have always been yours.”

“Always been mine? Princess Celestia, what are you saying? Did you… did you expect me to become an alicorn?” Twilight shied back. “Was this… did you plan this? Did you plan this from the start?”

“I’m not talking about your ascension, Twilight. There are things that one hopes for, but this isn't about destiny. Not in this case. It’s about...” Celestia struggled to find the words. “Heritage.”

“Then what—” She looked about the room. Both princesses were avoiding her gaze. “I’m not - Princess, I'm not nobility by blood. My family’s well off and there’s ancestry but… I’m pretty sure we’re descended from Earth Pony courtiers! Nobility is… there are unicorn families out there that could trace their ancestry all the way back to Gusty the Great, way farther back than mine.”

Her confusion was met with silence.

“Can someone PLEASE explain to me what’s going on?”

“It’s… not my place to tell you, Twilight. It’s hers,” Celestia pointed to Luna, who had spent the entire time since looking away. Now she stepped towards Twilight, levitating an envelope towards her. It trembled in her magic, and Twilight suddenly realized she had never seen Luna look like this… this afraid.

Luna was terrified. Twilight eyed the envelope, which was sealed by a glowing golden wax mark. She gasped.

“This… this is a top level royal seal! Only a princess can open one of these!”

“It is your right,” said Luna quietly, passing it to her.

It surprised her how easily the seal opened. Twilight had expected something a bit less anticlimactic. Maybe what was inside wasn’t the secrets of the universe, or a missive detailing that the entire royal family were aliens. But then what was everyone so afraid of?

And why was it rubbing off on her? She began to pull the sheet of paper out. Just a single sheet of paper, lifting it close to her head to get a good look.

She read it.

And then she read it again.

And then a third time. Then a fourth.

“Twilight…” Pleaded Luna.

“This is… You can’t… Then…”

She looked down at the paper. She couldn’t believe her eyes. She couldn’t believe her brain. She couldn’t believe anything anymore.

CERTIFICATE OF ADOPTION
This certifies that
Twilight Sparkle
Has been formally adopted by
Twilight Velvet
Night Light
Granting herewith all rights and privileges as a member of their family.

The dates and signatures were all undeniable. The seal was undeniable.

It was real.

“I’m… I’m adopted?”

Luna nodded.

“But then… if I’m… there’s a royal seal.”

“Breathe, Twilight. You are panicking, and it will pass.”

“If my parents… if they aren’t—” She swallowed, tears forming in her eyes as she started to hyperventilate. “Who…”

“Who are my… my…”

“Your birth parents?”, finished Luna. Twilight nodded. Luna said nothing in response. She just stared at her.

And then it all hit Twilight at once.

Just a formality.

The title had always been hers.

She wasn’t crowned a princess because she had become an alicorn.

She had been crowned a princess because…

Because…

Because she was born a princess.

And she’d only be born a princess is if—

Is if her mother—

If her mother was—

Her legs weak, her stomach churning, she looked up at Luna. Luna smiled back at her, gently, calmingly.

Caringly.

There were tears in her eyes too.

“Hello there, my little star,” whispered her mother.

The world spun around her, and Twilight fell to the floor unconscious.

“Well,” admitted Celestia finally, “All things considered, she took it better than I expected.”

Author's Note

Here we go, second longer fic up and running. This chapter's dedicated to the twenty thousand unfinished Twilight-Is-Luna's-Daughter fics out there. Shine on you crazy diamonds, you.

Thanks to the discord and TrollyTrainer for the proofread.