‘its beautiful twilight’ Celestial’s voice echoed through her royal chambers
‘I wish it had been me who had made it so’ twilight dipped her head in shame
Celestia drew closer to her student ‘twilight, as I understand it spike was the one to give the crystal heart to cadence’ she bowed her head closer to twilights and whispered ‘because you were not willing to risk the future of the crystal ponies in an effort to guarantee your own.’
Twilight looked up at her princess, tears welling in the corners of her eyes. Celestia continued to say ‘far better that I have a student who knows the meaning of self-sacrifice than have one who only looks out for her own best interests’
A spark glinted in twilight’s eyes as she said ‘does this mean’ she hesitated ‘does this mean I pass?’
A grin spread wide across Celestia’s face as she proudly said ‘yes twilight sparkle, you pass’
‘yes, oh yes, oh yes, oh yes’ twilight cheered as she beamed and ran around in excitement. She turned on Celestia and jumped to embrace her saying ‘thank you princess, oh thank you so much’
Celestia grinned back at her favourite student saying ‘I am very proud of you twilight. Now go and share your success with your friends, I’m sure they are waiting anxiously for you’
‘oh yes of course princess’ twilight let go of her pure white neck and started walking out of the royal chambers, before she reached the end of the red carpet leading to the great doors though she turned and said ‘there is one thing princess, something I don’t quite understand’
‘yes, what is it twilight?’ Celestia asked
‘well I know this may be a touchy area but how did you and princess Luna banish king Sombra, you said that he took over the crystal empire 1000 years ago, wasn’t Luna banished to the moon at that time?’
Celestia want stiff and said nothing for a good few minutes before replying in a whisper ‘come closer’
Twilight did and only when she was right in front of Celestia did the princess continue to speak ‘I ask first that you not repeat this to my sister, it upsets her.’
‘of course’ twilight said ‘I swear to never repeat whatever it is’
‘ok’ Celestia continued ‘when my sister and I originally defeated discord we set up three kingdoms, one was Canterlot,
another was the crystal empire, the third no longer has a name but lies where the current everfree forest now grows.’
‘but princess why have I never read any books about this, I’ve read every book in your library’ twilight said ‘because twilight, I had them all hidden away in a secret vault, lest unworthy eyes where to read them’
‘I ruled over Canterlot as I still do and Luna ruled the crystal empire. That is until Sombra appeared 1000 years ago, he defeated my sister and took over the crystal empire as a tyrant king. While he was busy enslaving the crystal ponies Luna galloped day and night through the skies as fast as her wings would carry her. She arrived in Canterlot where she petitioned me to unite with her in order to defeat Sombra’s tyranny. We set out immediately and arrived to find he had enslaved all the crystal ponies and forced them to channel all their crystal energy into the crystal heart, we found him draining the crystal heart of its power and using the power fuel his own evil magics.’
Celestia paused to breathe ‘We had planned to destroy him but with his new power we were unable to fully overcome him, even with our united power and the elements of harmony. We managed to banish him but in the last seconds of his existence he set two curses; one caused his kingdom to be banished with him so he could rule it while he was exiled, the other curse was set on me but it missed its aim and hit Luna. At first I did not know what the curse was but I later found out he had corrupted the elements of harmony. It caused my own sister to resent me and allowed bitterness to brew in her heart. Unknowing of this I invited my sister to come and rule Canterlot together with me and she gratefully accepted the offer but after a few weeks the jealousy and bitterness in her heart engulfed her and she became a monster. She became nightmare moon.’
‘one dawn she refused to bring the moon down, this distressed the ponies of all equestria, I tried desperately to reason with her, but in the end I had to banish my own sister. Just as we had only weeks earlier banished Sombra.’ Princess Celestia looked out one of the tall windows and twilight saw that she had been silently weeping through the whole story, the rays of
her own sun reflected off the streams that ran down her face.
‘oh princess I never realised’ said twilight, she nuzzled her princess's withers and cried with her.