Anthology

Chapter 8: Little Sister Duty

Gallopia Bastion, The First Kingdom of Equestria

Seventh month (summer)

Approximately 8,000 B.N.M.C. (8,000 years before Nightmare Moon crisis)

The young Princess Celestia woke up to one of the most uncomfortable mornings in her life.

She woke up in an awkward position with her head up against a wall and between her two hooves.

She slumped up wobbly-like onto her four legs. After opening her eyes wide, Celestia squinted in the darkness as her eyes dilated to the pitch black.

The Princess flickered a little light from her horn via her alicorn magic, but being aware that such light would be too intense, she cast fire and lit a small candle that she stole from downstairs instead.

One of Princess Celestia longest stays in the corridors was 3 days, after that, things just got too weird, too scary, too boring or claustrophobic.

Despite the fact that nopony but Celestia was probably aware of the existence of the corridors, and despite the fact that Celestia was decently honest, Celestia would never be brutally honest enough to admit that she heard some kind of voices in the corridors.

The voices definitely were not pony voice from downstairs, since they sounded so much louder and close, and sometimes the voices didn't even sound like they came from a pony, but despite all that Celestia was reluctant to stay in the corridors.

And this also wasn't to Celestia didn't have logical explanations for the voices, after all, many could secretly be aware of the corridors, or the sound traveled up far enough.

So far the most supernatural explanation Celestia would be accustomed to believing would be the voices were the souls of the alicorn ancestors magically communicating to her from across the void of death, but it could be agreed that if Celestia had heard of any of the myths that were created about the corridors when they were common information, she might have not been even near the corridors at all.

So when Princess Celestia heard a voice down the all from were she had slept, she didn't pay much attention, until the voice said,

"Celestia."

That froze Celestia's royal alicorn blood. Now it wasn't because that the whispering voice uttered her name in darkness, since she had occasionally heard her name being called from the lower tiers when she had first hid in the dark corridors, but because the voice seemed shrill and unfamiliar, adult and feminine, but ultimately creepy and evil.

"It has been a thousand years, my sister." Celestia started to hear soft hoofsteps clopping down towards her.

As the young Princess' heart started to clutch and race faster and faster in minced silent terror as the form of a full-grown dark colored alicorn started to emerge itself from the shadows of the hall.

"Come out from the shadows, you are fully aware that I am the superior one. What you did to me was crime, and I have come back now to take the kingdom in my eternal night and raise up a great army once again." The mare in the shadows told her.

"What?" Celestia whimpered.

"Don't play stupid with me, we've been with each other far to long for you to use such a tactic on me." The mare titled the margin her head up in the darkness. "Gaze on my might, proweress, darkness and superiority!"

With that, the mysterious alicorn mare brightened her horn with a strange pale bluish-black emittance revealing her sinister features to Celestia.

As the alicorn-light waxed brighter and brighter, Celestia tried to make out the still-dark features of the mare.

Bluish-green eyes....

Dark coat....

Blue armor...

Bat-pegasi wings....

An adult mare alicorn....

"Luna?" Celestia speculated out loud.

"That name is dead!" The mare said, with the room fully illuminated with her dark alicorn sorcery.

***

When Princess Celestia awoke, she heard the noise of the servants and guards downstairs caressing the castle only, no dark evil mares.

"How long had I slept?" Princess Celestia thought to herself. But such questions were, in truth, irrelevant.

Since she had probably stayed in the dark corridors long enough, Celestia figured, her parents, Goethe and everypony else who might have been angry at her for breaking the vase were probably not angry anymore. After all, her hiding in the dark corridors waiting for her parent's anger to subside was nothing new to Celestia. Now all she needed to do is turn herself in to the castle staff and receive a proper scolding from her parents and whatnot about breaking the vase and being absent for so long....

***

Unsurprisingly, when Princess Celestia turned herself in to the castle guards, they all acted like Celestia had returned to them as a ghost and started calling for backup and yelled that they has found the Princess. Again, this was not a new experience to Princess Celestia. Like all of the other times, she just sat on her plot and waited until some really buff guards came to take her away to Aeterna and Terra.

But after when Celestia was taken to her parents in the throne room, Terra and Aeterna didn't seem to have the usual look of sternness upon their faces that they usually got when their daughter had disappeared for hours on end.

Celestia just stood in front of them below the elevated dias-space waiting for either one of them to talk.

"Celestia, honey," it was her mom, Queen Aeterna "While you were gone, we found out about the vase."

"And we would just like to inform you" It was King Terra now "that it was neither a expensive vase nor an old or ancient one, and all the true old relics are kept within a secure part of the castle."

"What your father is trying to say is," Aeterna said, half-interupting her husband the King "is that we still love you and you don't have to somehow pay or get punished because you broke the vase."

Celestia cracked a tiny smile from underneath of her brow. "That's good, I guess...where concerned that I was gone and stuff, I mean?"

Aeterna slowed nodded her head. "Of course we were, filly. But by now, after all the past disappearances that you made when we were angry or when you thought you'd get in trouble, we figured you were just fine. However, we might have a talk later on where you go in the castle or out of the castle when you hide from us."

After a brief notion of silence, Celestia's father picked up the conversation again.

"While you were gone, your younger sister, Princess Luna, said her first word. It was "light", a curious first word for a foal, especially for an alicorn of moon, but I wasn't there at the time." He glanced over at Aeterna for a moment. "And another thing happened to Luna while you were gone..."

Celestia leaned in, but her father waved his hoof in front of her.

"No, no, she didn't earn her cutie-mark in record time or anything. What happened was, or at least what happened according to Goethe and Starswirl, was our little princess has inherited one of her mother's sacred abilities."

"The ability to manipulate, enter, and ultimately control dreams." Aeterna revealed.

"Wait, how...how...how did you find out?" She looked over at Terra, "Dad, why don't I have a power like that?"

Aeterna shook her head and laughed. "A power such as that would never come to a sun alicorn, filly. Just understand for now that only I and Luna can control the dreamscape and that some of the ancestors had the ability as well."

"Um, again, how did you find this out again?"

Terra cleared his throat. "Both Duchess Goethe and Starswirl the bearded are both experts in the fields of magic, as you are no doubt aware. During the time you were gone, Celestia, Luna had been giving off magical signals that both Goethe and Starswirl detected. The same night that her magic signals were discovered, there was gossip and reports from the castle staff about having strange, almost manipulated dreams. After me and your father were informed about these dreams, we reported these findings to Goethe and Starswirl, who immediately locked themselves in their respective rooms. After a couple of hours of research, both Goethe and Starswirl came up with the same conclusion: that Luna had the magical gift-ability of dream manipulation."

"Of course," Aeterna started "This was already your father's and I's first guess. Not only do I already possess this ability, but some of the ancestors and Protogenoi even were said to have a form of that power. How can we both have the same ability at the same time, you might ask? Simple: we both have equal control and manipulation over the dreamscape (if a young filly as you can understand such concepts) but only Luna's power is unrefined and weaker at this point of her magical development. This is a much different thing than you earning your cutie-mark for, say, inheriting your father's power of raising and lowering the sun."

Celestia just stooped into space in the direction of her mother. "All this is making my head spin...so to speak."

"You don't have to understand, filly, we are just so excited for your new sister. Speaking of which, you aren't going to get off scot-free, I and your father (especially your father) know better than to let you run off like that and go unpunished."

Now Celestia was out of her comfort-zone "What? Why? This isn't fair, I've ran away before when you were mad, and you didn't punish me!" Celestia cried out in anguish.

"There are several good reasons." Celestia's father told her "One is that you have missed precious time with Goethe, who teaches your precious royal education. Another is that you stayed quite than 2 days..."

Celestia tuned out her father voice. More than two days? Is that what he said? I was in the corridors for more than 2 days? How could that have happened?

"..and the last reason is that we believe you ran away because you were jealous (and probably still are) of your foal-sister Princess Luna." It was her mother, Queen  Aeternawho was talking now. "Which leads me to the subject of what your punishment is..."

"Uh..."

"Celestia, you're going to have to take care of your sister independently for a bit."

"What!?!"

"I've already spoken with your governess Duchess Goethe and she says that any school that you will miss will count as Home-ec. She said she had to do a similar thing with her siblings around your age."

Terra only responded with a graceful nod of approval.

***

Although many fillies and colts in the first kingdom of Equestria occasionally enjoy playing with and taking care of their younger siblings, Celestia, the Princess of Equestria, did not enjoy taking care of her younger sister.

There were several reasons for this.

The first reason was that when her mother said "you're going to have to take of your sister for a bit" meant "take care of your sister for 3 straight days." (The Nanny-mares were quite happy with their 3 days off by the way.)

The second reason was that after she was told she was going to have to take care of her sister for 3 days, she found out that she had to live in her sisters room for 3 days also, and share the same crib. This wonderful idea came to Celestia's mother's brain when strict Terra suggested that Celestia staying with Luna would not only give her life lessons on how to take care of a foal, but also strengthen her relationship-bond with her foal sister.

The third was that Princess Celestia was rather jealous of her sister. She came into her life and family without warning, and had bumped Celestia out of the "foal of the royal family" position.

And the last and possibly most important reason was the kind of games Luna wanted to play with Celestia were both tiring and embarrassing.

The first game that Luna wanted to play was something called "horsie". (please don't ask me where the concept or name of this game came from) After several (long) minutes of Princess Luna Riding on Celestia's back, Celestia began to feel tired and her legs became sore and semi-weak.

The next game was a bit better and more interesting, however.

Celestia always remembered playing long games of "house" with her mommy Artemis when she was little. Luna was the mom, Celestia was the aunt, and the little...wooden blocks....were the children, with the entire room as the "house".

Luna's last game before bedtime was the most embarrassing of all though.

It was a game of "mama and baby".

Celestia was told by Luna (indicated by gestures and directing Celestia by touch) to lay down. After Celestia was laid down, Luna walked out of Celestia's vision, when Luna returned, she came back with her blue moon-themed pacifier in her hooves. Luna walked up to Celestia and stuck in Princess Celestia's mouth. Princess Celestia, surprised by this, sucked on her sister's pacifier for good measure, knowing that this was a game. After sucking on her sister's pacifier for a while, Celestia noticed the taste of old stale peanut butter, Celestia assumed the taste was from dried peanut butter left on the pacifier after a couple hours or days.

After seeing her "baby" was happy, Luna sat Princess Celestia up and started to decorate her sister with pretty make-up and bows and glitter that made her look like a clown or something. Celestia was scared to think if Luna would do the same thing to a brother as she had done to her.

It got worse and worse, Luna fed Celestia with a bottle (Celestia just went along with it) and Celestia even got to try on her sister's clothes.

At the end of the day, at Luna's bedtime, Celestia put Luna in her crib, surprisingly to no complications. Celestia got some reading done in some of the hours between Luna's bed-time and her own. After all her hours of free-time were spent, Celestia joined her sister in her crib....

...and woke up the next morning with a pacifier in her mouth and wearing a diaper. Apparently nopony had told her that she was done playing "mama and baby".

And speaking of diapers, Celestia learned how to change one, but it was everything but fun.

Half the time, she tried to run-away when her sister was trying to change her, other times she tried to run away included when she was reading up on how to change a diaper, or anytime she took her eyes off of Luna.

The biggest headache of those 3 days was bathing and feeding her little sister.

Luna was a natural picky-eater, and the "here comes the pegasi" trick didn't really work for her. After a while she just gave up and asked Goethe (kindly) to do it for her.

And oh yes, bathing.

Luna was so stubborn not to take a bath, she even used her alicorn magic to try exempt herself from any bath-taking.

After what seemed like hours, Celestia had discovered the simple trick to getting her to take a bath: just cast easy counter-spells to disrupt her magic and force her body into the tub and magically cement her there.

And from that pint on, giving a bath to Princess Luna was easy...except the fact that Luna always shook the water out of fur (like dogs) which was a thing that Celestia had no counter-spells for.

The three days went by slowly, but when they were done, Celestia had, yes, created a stronger familial bond with Luna, and, yes, she had learned many important lessons concerning foal-care, but no matter how she squared it, Princess Celestia hoped that she would never get punished with little sister-duty again.