Where Will You Run to When Your Goddesses Are Gone?

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."

~ Mark Twain

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2439 years previous, before Celestia's "Thousand Year Reign", before the Banishment of Nightmare Moon and her Rebellion, and before the First Defeat of the Demon Unicorn King Sombra...

It was a grim day.

Dark clouds began to roll in from the Equestrian horizon, slowly obscuring Celestia's warm sun from the ground below. The Pegasi had scheduled for it to rain today, a result of the recent drought and loss of food; unicorns and Earth ponies alike had enthusiastically welcomed the precipitation, though some had called such an arrangement a "hassle". Nevertheless, the weather was the weather and nothing could change that; not even the unicorns if they tried.

In Canterlot, however, the sight of clouds did nothing to help lighten the already bleak atmosphere. An economic deficit had begun to manifest itself as a direct result of the war; as a result, many of the aristocratic ponies in the capital, mostly unicorns and to a lesser extent, Earth ponies, had been on the edge, more wary now than before of whoever they talked to or shared personal details with. Tension was beginning to grow in the higher classes of society.

Inside Canterlot Castle, a less tense activity was taking place. Royalty and Regents of the Sun and Moon, Her Magesties, Respectively, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, were sitting down in the royal courts, listening to their subjects with bored enthusiasm. The elder sister sat down on a large throne with velvet throws and hoofrests for relaxation, with a mini-refrigerator full of refreshments not too far away from. A large red bowl of fruit, containing mostly apples, grapes, and bananas, stood atop the small mini-fridge. Her little sister sat down beside her at a lower level, listening to the petitioner less enthusiastically and more idly while she laid back and read a freshly printed newspaper.

The place was large, very large, in fact. A long red velvet carpet bisected the cathedral-ceilinged room, with rows of ceiling-height windows on each opposite wall shining Celestia's warm sun inside. Behind the throne, in fact, was one large window taking up almost all of the wall to a magnificent view of not only Canterlot below, but on clear days, the most amazing single palette of greenery to be seen from anywhere in Equestria. It wasn't much of a surprise, considering they were past the edge of a tall mountain, but it sure was astonishing.

Large columns supported the weight of the expansive division of the Royal Castle. Far above, connected to the sloped ceiling, were a few crystal chandeliers that hung down halfway to the ground (still a ways overhead thanks to the 60-foot-tall ceiling), illuminating the rooms at night with pleasant warm candlelight augmented by the crystals themselves.

But today was no time for warmth, or anything leisurely of that matter.

This stallion would be the Princess's last guest to entertain today. Though court usually stayed open until two o'clock (it wasn't even past noon yet), the Princesses had more pressing matters to attend to today. There was something the two had to administer to, and it definitely wasn't going to be pretty...

"And that is why I propose we should create a graduated income tax," the petitioner finished. He was a handsome stallion with a light brown coat, deep brown chocolate eyes, and moderate brown hair; in fact, he seemed quite the professional. His cutie mark was an expensive velvet red tie.

The Princess nodded idly, eventually able to soak up everything he had said. "Hmm... yes, we will consider your suggestion," she finally replied with a faraway voice after a minute or two of waiting. Waving off the stallion with a golden-shoed hoof, he took a deep bow before backing away and leaving the courts.

So that was that. The Princess of the Sun finally sat up straight on her throne and stretched her neck and back before attending to her limbs in turn. Her hair, a moderately hot pink, fading to a light cyan, and then a beautiful light green color, elegantly moved as if an invisible wind was pushing it to do so. That was one of the perks of natural magic given to Goddesses...

She turned to her sister, who gave a brief nod. Setting her newspaper down, She arched her back in a quick stretch before accompanying her elder to a walk down one of the darker and smaller halls in the castle. They exited the courts after most of the other spectators had left, as was their custom; however, what they did this time around wasn't what they normally did. Instead of turning a left down the hall to the kitchens to get a cup of coffee or tea, they made a right, and then another right. They went down a few flights of stairs until they were in the sub-ground hallways, much smaller, darker, and colder now.

"How do you think the Court will react to your message, big sister?" Princess Luna asked. "It isn't every day that the common folk receive this type of message..." The two made their way down the halls in complete silence except for their voices (their hooves, though adorned with very fine shoes of pure gold on the elder and pure silver and titanium on the younger, were silent thanks to their magic).

Outside and above them, the pitter-patter of rain pounding on the castle could be heard.

Princess Celestia breathed a sigh as they continued to move forwards. Her only response was a shake of the head, followed by more silence as the two ventured to the deepest parts of the castle. The Court would be waiting for them inside.

Descending a seemingly bottomless spiral staircase not unlike that found in the Crystal Citadel (albeit much, much farther down, even past ground level at the bottom of the mountain), the two ignored the frigid air and descended lower and lower until they reached the bottom. They turned a left and opened one of four doors on different sides of the circular "pit", venturing even farther down below the surface.

Once they reached their destination after quite a long walk, a dull white wall greeted them. With no openings or lines on the walls or indications of any of the sort, it seemed like a dead end. However, Princess Celestia reached out with a hoof and touched a particular part of the ground. To the untrained eye it seemed to be just another white brick, but to highly trained magicks, a disturbance could clearly be felt at that point.

Almost immediately, thin but very bright lines of pure yellow light shot out from the Princess's golden hoof, snaking down the ground and up the wall, where it divided into two lines, making a rectangle that extended from the ground to the ceiling. A few seconds later, eight lines, four from each corner, and four from the middles of each side, shot out from their places to meet at a single point in the very middle, before the rectangle in the wall became filled with light as bright as the sun, taking up the entire area of the rectangle.

Without waiting for anything more, the elder sister took the lead, barely squinting her eyes against the light. She took a few steps before relaxing herself and walking directly into the blinding rectangle, with her sister not too far behind her. Once they got to the other side (having seemed to walk through the wall), their eyes quickly adjusted to the darker room.

It was a large circular room, at least eight pony-lengths in diameter and many times more in height. Three torch chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and torch sconces lined the walls to provide adequate lighting for the meeting room.

In the middle was a decagonal table. The middle was an elevated circle, and a softly glowing white half-sphere no more than half a hoof-length wide was in the middle of that.

The two sisters took their seats amongst the eight other ponies, sitting on opposite side of each other. With another sigh, the solar Princess cleared her throat and began to speak.

"Mares and gentlecolts, Elders of the Council and Overseers of the Court, the eight of you have been called to... a rather important meeting," the Princess said in a powerful voice, one that demanded a pony's full and undivided attention. "We must attend to the financial deficit set in motion by the Great War up North, the potential rise of a tyrant king in the Crystal Empire, and the creation of new institutions of study. But before that, however, I would like to give you all a little tidbit about myself," she continued. Her mind began to wander a bit.

Truly, right now, she wanted to further her own agenda. She wanted the knowledge now! But at the same time didn't want to be selfish or anything like that, but...

However, being born an alicorn always made her different. When her and Luna's parents were still alive, she was always apart from other ponies, considered detached and not like others. It was like she was an alien to them, and they didn't seem to care.

She learned to cope with it, though. After that, she started to take up her own thing: learning as much as she could about everything around her. She attended school every single day and took the most advanced classes the school could offer her, learning everything she possibly could. She advanced at an amazing rate, given her kind, and she rose up higher and higher in the science and math classes. But one day she encountered a problem.

She had already learned everything there was to learn.

As a result, she gazed up at the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and started to think. Truly there was something more to the universe than just Equestria and an eternal cycle of sun and moon rotating around the planet, wasn't there? She tried to learn more and more, but she found herself at a loss, all just three years after graduating Valedictorian from Canterlot Academy. There was nothing more to learn. And ever since that day more than three hundred years ago she had always wondered what was beyond that purple evening sky.

But then, her parents' death by the claws of Discord changed everything. Luna and Celestia, two extremely gifted alicorns of Royalty, were completely alone. The nation was in chaos, and many ponies looked up to them two to solve everything, every problem every pony had. And to gain the people's trust, the two made a decision to proclaim themselves, in all their royalty and strength, as Goddesses, so they could defeat Discord and restore the nation back to its old, if not better, state. That would change the rest of their lives, especially Celestia's: she would not be able to learn more than everything she could if she didn't tell the truth... the truth that she and her sister were not Goddesses at all. And that plagued her for the rest of her life... until now.

The soft clearing of her sister's throat brought her back to reality, making her slowly drifting eyes snap back into place with the real world. The Great Princess Celestia cleared her throat and took a breath; it was now or never.

"Most of you know my sister and me as the Diarchy, the Two Goddesses, daughters of the King and the Queen Deities who perished three hundred years ago at the evil Discord's claws. The latter may be true, though I still grieve for our loved ones. However... the former is only a... let's just say it's a title we've put on for ourselves; something we believe is necessary."

All around, the ponies began to shuffle in their seats, and an air of uncertainty filled the room.

The Princess sensed the aura and closed her eyes, relaxing herself and her heart, which was inconveniently beating faster and faster. Moments later, she relaxed and took a deep breath.

"Had it not been for the Royal Proclamation, we would not be thought of as Goddesses. The truth, however, is quite... scathing, I must admit. Not to all ponies out there, however, but to us.

"We are not your Goddesses; we are but mortal ponies possessing superior magic and physical attributes. Now, there is a very specific reason why I called you here today to discuss this sensitive topic with, our most trusted of the Royal House. And that is because we trust you to keep our secret," she addressed them directly.

At this, even Princess Luna flinched a bit, hoping the words her sister spoke were the right ones.

Almost immediately, the atmosphere went from uncertainty to utter doubt and distrust. The eight members of the Council shifted more than they had before, with some beginning to chew on their pens and others shaking their nervous legs. One of them, a light grey Earth mare with a light brown mane and hazel eyes, was in a cold sweat.

"Wh-What other... things do we have to discuss, Your... Magesties...?" came a very soft, quivering voice from the mare. "You said we had to deal with creating... new institutions of study?"

The Princess nodded solemnly and took a seat on the larger chair, sitting upright and positioning herself comfortably. She stuck a hoof out and placed it flat on the table in front of her. A hologram of a sphere appeared, labeled 'Equestria' in a digitalized font on the bottom could be seen, making the aura of the room lighten and relax, if even just a bit. It seemed to be projected from the small semicircle embedded into the table, and the whole sphere easily filled the room as big as it could without being distorted.

Here, as Celestia took a seat and manipulated the controls with her magic, Princess Luna instead stood up from her chair and began to canter around as she spoke.

"As you all know, this is our planet, Equestria. Our humble country is but a small landmass compared to the rest of the world; that much can be said when comparing our nation to Dragon territory, which extends from the Badlands down to the Mons Vitreus down at the bottom of the globe," she said, motioning with a raised hoof to their country and its size before pointing to Dragon territory, which was easily six times the size of the pony nation.

"However... what you do not know is that Celestia's Sun..." the globe suddenly zoomed out drastically until it was no more than a thousandth of its size. The center of the view was now a large sphere, at least five hundred thousand times larger than their planet. The mere size of the star caused many in attendance to gasp in shock and surprise.

"...is the center of our solar system," Princess Luna continued. We have been holding that information from common folk and you for quite some time now. Such a fact has implications. This means that your Princess Celestia does not have control over the Sun, nor do I have control over the moon, but that there are greater forces at work in the universe, greater than pony magic alone.

"From our observations of the movements of the stars..." she continued as the hologram zoomed out tens of thousands of times more drastically than it had before, to a level where a majestic swirl could be seen, bright in the center, with sparse spirals radiating out from it; it was their galaxy. "... we have concluded that we are naught but a speck in a hostile universe; a universe that, according to our calculations, has a radius (with our planet as the center, mind you) of two hundred seventy sextillion, four hundred ten quintillion, nine hundred ninety-one quadrillion, two hundred forty trillion, nine hundred twenty-six billion, two hundred twenty-three million, seven hundred three thousand, six hundred sixty miles. This universe does not run solely on magic, but on other phenomena which we want YOU to research and discover."

The eight other ponies were still trying to understand exactly what the Lunar Princess had just bombarded them with through that mouth of hers.

"In other words," Princess Celestia sat up straighter in her seat. She took her hooves off the hologram control, to stand up beside her sister; the hologram continued to slowly rotate around the galaxy. "We would like you to set up new institutions devoted solely on the advancement of scientific knowledge. That is, we want you to delve deeper into mathematics and use your discoveries to analyze the universe around us... and give us access to places beyond this solar system," she told them.

"We would also very much appreciate it if you were to establish an Institute for Gifted Ponies, teaching them with the highest magnitude of knowledge possible. Along with that, a space program should be established... in secret, of course," the Lunar Princess stressed that part especially.

"And, once again... my sister and I urge you to keep the nature of this meeting a secret," Princess Celestia said firmly, able to wrap the meeting up.

Cautiously, the eight other ponies looked amongst each other, unable to understand the enormity of the situation they were in. Not only did they have to study the world around them and delve deeper into mathematics and science, but they also had to create a space program in secret (which was quite important since outer space was an aspect of life that was introduced to them just a minute or two ago) and digest the fact that the two Princesses were not goddesses, as well as keep that a secret from prying pony eyes.

They had quite a lot to worry about.