A Fallen Angel

Criss woke as sunlight flooded the hospital wing.

Where am I?

A more disturbing thought:

Who am I?

As the effects of a long, magic induced sleep wore off, he started to remember everything that had happened.

Oh yeah. Right.

"Hey, kid."

Double was sitting on his bed, with his spine turned at an awkward angle so he could look at Criss. For the first time, Criss had been able to see his Cutie Mark. It was a line, with a bunch of branches coming off of the side, the lines only a bit darker blue than Double Time's coat.

"Hey, Double." It sounded so awkward when he called him by his first name.

"So, I got some bad news."

Great.

"Celestia approved your letters, and you're gonna be sent to E-gen."

Well, it was innevitable.

"On the other hoof, Celestia would like to meet you."

Criss blinked.

Double said "She's waiting outside."

He was definitely the most irritating pony ever.

Now wasn't the time to lose his temper. however; Double opened the hospital-wing door to show the grander of the two sisters.

Celestia

Both the curse, and the real thing.

"Your Majesty." Criss bowed as low as he could in bed.

"Please, I'm Celestia. Just Celestia."

"Yes, your M- Celestia." Criss blushed.

"He is quite a cute child, isn't he?" Celestia asked the sister that had creeped up beside her.

"Yes, indeed." Luna reponded.

Criss's coat was a completely different shade.

"T-t-thank you, yo- Celestia."

"I came to ask how you were feeling?" Celestia said, suppressing a chuckle.

"Oh! Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks for asking." Criss said, quickly remembering his manners.

"That's good. I see your wings are growing back in full. It's a shame not everypony can be as peaceable as we wish. That some even enjoy the violence."

"Uh, Yeah." Criss hadn't understood the word in the middle, "Peacable". He was sure it meant something like "nice".

"Can you walk?"

"Uh, I'm not sure. I have a cast on my leg now, though, so I could probably use crutches."

"Good. Would you like to come to our dining hall?" Celestia smiled, gesturing to herself and Luna.

"Wow, really? You'd want to have lunch with me?" That wasn't supposed to be out loud.

Celestia looked slightly confused. "Of course. Why wouldn't I want one of my little ponies to dine with me?"

"Sure, It'd be great to eat with you two!"

"Good. Double?" The blue unicorn raised his head. "See if you can get Criss some crutches."

The first thing Criss noticed was it was a big dining hall. Really big.

There were 5 long tables lying across the room, a large table seated at their end with two thrones, one white marble, one black jet. The marble throne had red pillows, the jet throne had dark blue.

There was a chair set to the left of the white throne, and, surprisingly, a wooden chair that had been set right in between the princesses thrones.

Because the one on Celestia's thrones' left was mounted to the floor, he figured that the princesses had actually set a chair in between them for him to sit in.

For the first time in a long time, Criss felt like he could be a colt again.

As they sat at the large table at the front, Celestia asked Criss "What would you like to eat, little one?"

If at any other time, anypony said that, Criss would've lost all humor and torn heads off.

As it was, he was a little nervous of chosing anything too unfancy for the Royalty.

"Um... Could I have a sunflower sandwich?"

"Of course."

Celestia turned to a waiter "Could you please bring a sunflower sandwich for this child?"

"Certainly, m'lady-"

"Please, it's Celestia."

"-Certainly, Celestia."

The waiter nodded and wandered off. That was cool. Criss thought. "Uhm... C-Could I have a drink of something?"

"Absolutely, what would you like to drink?"

"I don't know... Water?"

Holding a pitcher of water in her magic, and summoning a cup, she poured Criss a glass of water, and handed it to him. Criss wondered how he was going to hold the glass before he saw the grooves in the bottom and sides for hooves to hold onto the cup with.

"Thank you, Celestia."

"Absolutely."

The evening was turning out quite nicely. Criss completely forgot his worries as the food came out. The princesses turned out not to be as prissy as everypony insisted; laughing and joking and often playing small pranks on each other quite often. Guard ponies filtered in and out, getting lunch breaks at different times.

Eventually, it had to end. "Phew, I'm quite full." Celestia said.

Luna agreed with a small giggle. "Yes, I am quite 'stuffed'."

Criss glanced over at Double, who had glasses on and was completely involved in a book he was reading. His salad was untouched beside him.

Celestia must've followed Criss's gaze, for the next thing she said was "Tch. Double. What a waste of good food."

This made him start. "Sorry, Celestia, I wasn't paying much attention to it at all. It's a really good book."

"Pfft. You sound just like Twilight."

Celestia turned back to Criss. "Would you like to sleep in a proper bedroom tonight?"

Criss thought about it for a moment. Only a moment. "Yes, please. That'd be wonderful." Criss suddenly caught what he had said. "N-n-not that the hospital-wing beds are uncomfortable or anything, it's j-"

"I know." Celestia said with a smile, and Criss slowly calmed down.

"Now, would you like a tour of the palace?" Celestia asked.

"Uh, that'd be fun. Yeah, sure." Criss grinned

Celestia smiled. Double, however, had set down his book and was glaring at the back of Celestia's head, "Celestia..." he began, and sounded somewhat chiding.

Celestia seemed not to hear. "Then we adjorn at once." She said, rising from the table.

As they left the dining hall, Criss figured he should ask. "Uh, I think that Double was trying to talk to you."

"Was he?" So she hadn't heard.

"Yeah, he called you."

"Ah, I see. Don't worry, I'll see what he wanted when we come back."

A few hours later Celestia and Luna had shown Criss most of the palace. "And up there is the observatory. It hasn't got a very good telescope, compared to some of the Canterlot observatories, or even the one in Manehatten. But it's our observatory, so it's good for what we use it for."

Luna broke in. "Stargazing, mostly."

Celestia smiled. Criss was happy. For the first time in a while. A very long while. He had no worries at that particular point in time. He was happy.

"Oh, excuse me, Criss, sister; I need to find the little princesses room."

This rose a chuckle in Celestia. "Criss and I shall be in the observatory." She turned quickly to Criss, a look of... was that worry? "Do you mind?"

"No! Not at all!"

"Good, I would hate to have somepony do something they didn't want."

As they entered the observatory, Criss drank in as many sights as he could. Though there wasn't much to see. He saw the black walls of the observatory, with lines of white to make out constellations and such as they would appear in the night sky. Across from them, there were two glass doors leading onto a balcony with a telescope on it. It was rather small for an observatory, but it was rather appropriate for the sister's matching modesty.

"Criss?"

She sounds upset... Oh, no... Did I do something wrong? "Yeah?" Criss asked cautiously.

"I was wondering, you don't want to go to E-gen, and you don't want to lose your memories, but you don't want to head back to your father." Celestia began. "I was considering; would you rather be raised here? At the palace? With Luna and I?" She had spoken that last part with carefully neutrallity.

"Oh!" Criss thought about it: Honestly, that would be great... but..... But if I did, I would be throwing away the reason I'm here in the first place. And my friends would hate me if they had to split themselves from me and lie to other ponies, just so I could become the princesses new best friend.Or new child.

With that he came to one conclusion. And it damn near ripped him apart.

"I would love to." Celestia's smile deepened, making it harder to say the next part. "But I can't."

"Oh." Celestia never stopped smiling, but instead managed to look confused, happy, and serious, all at the same time. "Why can't you?"

"Well... It's just that if I agreed to stay here, with you and Luna, I would be throwing away the thing that brought me here in the first place. Then there's the fact that I asked my friends to never forget me, and I would try to come back to them. I couldn't let them down and give to palace life." No matter how tempting.

"Then there is all that Double Time and Luna and you have done to get me this far into E-gen. I couldn't throw it all in your faces. Maybe not you, specifically, but definitly not theirs." Criss started crying as he realised what he was saying. "S-so, although I would love to stay here, and at any other time I would... I can't. I'm morally obliged to keep going. All the way to E-gen."

"Oh." Celestia stopped and pondered that for a moment. For a child, he has a sense of duty greater than I. "If this is your choice, I shall not force you. It is merely an option."

Criss sniffed, trying to regain face. "I'm sorry. I really, really, really wish I could. But too many have sacrificed too much to get me this far."

Celestia suddenly realised the reason why Double Time chose this pony.

"So be it. But come now, the sun sets; It is time for dinner, and I think I hear my sister."

Sure enough, as they were walking down the stairs, Luna came walking towards them. "Find anything of interest, you two?"

"Yes." Celestia said.