Glass a Thousand Miles Thick
She looked at the world before her, separated by the air and miles around. Princess Celestia sighed to herself. For all it mattered, the air may as well have been plate-steel.
Her ponies had done so many great things over the years… Discord, machinery, magic and bringing her sister back to her were all among these accolades, but her ponies had done that. And with each passing day she wondered whether they truly needed her or whether she’d become a crutch for them… part of the furniture.
She was immortal, she held immense power behind her horn and her sharp mind was below few others… but she was still just a pony. She was a pony who controlled the sun and walked around with a battalion of guards wherever she went.
It was the sort of thing that made social interactions strained at best.
For over five thousand years, she’d been at the head of pony civilisation, the beacon in the night for the coming dawn, and now ponies looked to her less and less for guidance and more out of polite niceties.
It was more or less the same thing that had led to Nightmare Moon’s emergence a thousand and five-hundred years ago. Change was inevitable and she’d be a fool to stop it, she’d always known that her ponies were amazing, that they’d go on to do brilliant things, and they’d done so.
She likened her position to an island in the sky, high above the world below. She saw the big picture, she saw the destination on the horizon, but what power did she really have over the world below?
She could try to stop change, but she never would, not even she was powerful enough for that. Ponies would evolve, they’d think up new inventions and new developments to enrich and destroy the lives of the populous. Celestia could try to stop them, but change was an oncoming storm with no end in sight.
She’d even heard rumours about a machine which could raise the heavens themselves that the University of Marechester had begun to work on. What would be left for her after that?
Would she become a figurehead perhaps? The omniscient figure who led the nation?
That would be fine if she truly knew all there was to know.
Maybe she’d be the councillor of the country, giving shrewd advice and direction as she saw fit?
Hardly a job for a pony who needed to be guided herself more and more these days.
Or maybe she’d just be left in an empty castle with aged guards befitting the artefacts within.
When had the change started? That was the question now wasn’t it? What had driven the cogs of society and the magic of Equestria into progress?
If she was honest with herself, she supposed that Twilight Sparkle had. Twilight had placed the first gear into the machine that was change. She’d been the one pushing change all her life, of Celestia’s many students, Twilight was the one she’d treasured most, it would be hard to replace her.
If she replaced her.
Celestia shook her head, staring out over the stone prison she occupied.
Twilight had driven the engine of change across Equestria, more so with her death than her life. It was sad really, she’d died doing what she loved, Celestia knew that at least… but she’d missed out on so much.
Twilight had never kept her friendships alive.
She’d never socialised more than she needed to.
She’d never found a special somepony.
She’d simply retreated into her books again and never shown her face.
She’d given her life up for the greater good; Celestia supposed that was one embodiment of friendship…
Kindness: She’d fought for all species.
Laughter: Her actions kindled good spirits between Equestria and its foreign neighbours.
Honesty: She’d stayed honest and true to her word and her heart.
Loyalty: She’d been loyal to her country, whatever the cost.
Generosity: She’d paid for it with her life freely.
It was the definition of friendship to the letter, held together by the magic of her research and theories. How Celestia wished that friendship had a different definition.
It was funny really… in an incredulous way.
It had taken Twilight’s death, a heart attack from her lack of sleep, to make Equestria aware of her work. Twilight had never been boastful in life, so it was to the surprise of the entire scientific community that the goldmine of research and theories had been hidden in Ponyville all this time, behind the doors of the library of all places.
They found the gear that Twilight had placed and set about turning it. It took a year or two before they found how, but then change came quick and fast.
Teleportation without a unicorn.
Flying without wings.
Computation.
Celestia smiled to herself… if Twilight had still been alive, she was fairly sure that even she would have been astounded by all she’d wrought with a few theories and experiments.
Or maybe she’d have made them all herself, more efficiently than the top scientists at Canterlot University had.
But she’d done what she’d done and as far as Celestia had ever found out, had no regrets for doing so. She suspected that Luna knew something regarding that, but she’d been sworn to Pinkie Pie secrecy long ago.
It was still somewhat eerie to Celestia for a dead ponies promise to still hold an effect over ponies as the ghostly whisper of ‘forever’ whistled through unwary ears, but she knew Twilight had her reasons for her secrets and respected them.
She’d grown apart from Twilight until she was her mentor by name alone. It had been a potent mixture of the reduced time she’d spent with her student and the dwindling letters they’d written each other as Twilight drew herself further and further away from society.
The last letter Celestia had written to Twilight had been a whole five months before she’d died in response to an inquiry about Spike’s wellbeing.
Celestia hadn’t known.
Spike had left several years earlier to find his true family and Celestia still didn’t find him until three years after Twilight’s death. She’d been the one to tell him of how Twilight had passed away, alone and friendless on the hard wood of the library floor.
He hadn’t cried then.
He just nodded numbly and left Canterlot the next morning.
His wails could be heard from the library he’d once inhabited.
She hadn’t seen him since.
It was just another change, another change that she was powerless to stop.
She made her way inside the museum in which she lived and looked out a window as the sun passed its zenith.
She ruled the land, but the glass separating them may have lasted a thousand miles for all it mattered.