Romance and the Fate of Equestria

Chapter Seventy-One

In a small room, the topmost room of the tallest tower in Canterlot Castle, Celestia burned various herbs in a huge golden bowl, watching the smoke as it formed shapes above the basin. Luna stood off to the side, watching her in concern.

"Sister?" Luna said softly. "Are you well?"

Celestia ground her teeth. "I just received some unsavory information about Vorpal Blade. I was… most infuriated. It blinded me. All I could think of to do was forward it to Twilight." She pawed the ground with her hoof. "What did that accomplish but to pain her? Now I'm just hoping to sharpen my rage into energy for predicting the looming disaster."

Luna frowned. "Sister, I'm concerned about you. I'd like to know the reasons for your behavior towards me behind closed doors as of late."

Celestia turned to her sister with a wounded expression. "Have I been mistreating you? I… I didn't realize. I am sorry. Can you explain?"

"Oh, I wouldn't call it 'mistreatment'," Luna said hastily. "I merely notice, I've come to expect the countenance of a warm and motherly princess from you. But lately, you've only shown that when we are in the presence of our subjects. Whenever you and I are alone, you become curt and irritable. Have I caused offense?"

"No, no, Luna, not at all," Celestia said with sad smile. "I apologize, I should have explained. You see, I suffer a great deal of inner turmoil. All I've ever been through, the pressures of being a thousand-year-old monarch with a number of magical burdens, the resulting rage and sorrow is constant and lies very close to the surface… but I cannot show that to the ponies of Equestria. I must be a symbol of stability and perfection. For them, I put on my 'brave face'. With you, my dear sister, I feel free for the first time in centuries to be my true self."

"…Oh," Luna whispered sympathetically. "We've been together three years, my sister. Why is this the first I've heard of this 'brave face'?"

"Well, you had your own problems," said Celestia. "You had immense trauma and angst from which to recover. I couldn't burden you with my problems. So you received my 'brave face' just as much as everypony else." She smiled. "Right about the time you started saying 'have' instead of 'hath', I figured you'd started adjusting… and then, of all things, you got into the film business. Clearly, you were enough at home in the world that you no longer needed my constant support. Now, we can support each other mutually, as sisters should. Is that all right?"

Luna bowed. "Ay. 'Tis all I ever wanted."

"Good," Celestia said. She looked back into the smoke.

"What is't you're doing?" Luna asked.

"Just some divinations," Celestia said, jostling the golden bowl. "The cataclysm is looming close, I just know it. I must be able to predict the cause of this coming darkness soon."

She jostled the bowl, and a multicolored sphere made of smoke rose out of the herbs. It solidified and began spinning, the colors forming the distinct shape of oceans and continents. Unlike the rest of the shapes in the smoke, it remained hanging in the air as it spun slowly.

"Hmm, what's that? Our mother's cutie mark?" Luna said curiously.

"No, that's the planet, Luna," said Celestia. "The smoke is showing me an illusion of a very detailed model of the planet."

"Oh… well, from this angle, it looks an awful lot like our mother's cutie mark."

"Yes, I suppose it's that too," Celestia admitted. She looked to the planet, then to Luna. "I love you, little sister."

Luna exclaimed in delight. "Oh… I love you too, my Celestia. You're wonderful."

"Well, maybe so, but I'm not a wonderful diviner," Celestia muttered. "Agh, this was a long shot anyway. I knew this was just some hokey fortune-telling. We might as well pick up a newspaper and check our horoscopes, for all the good this is doing."

"Horoscopes work," Luna said. "Or they would, if I were writing them. I could read the stars and produce a weekly horoscope column with perfect accuracy. But where would I find the time? As if being a princess and aspiring filmmaker wasn't enough to keep me awake at all hours…"

Celestia started pacing the floor. "This is so… frustrating! What do we know? The earth, the wind, the stars, these all show us clear symbols of generic doomsday buzz-words: conflict, suffering, imbalance. Scales tipped by Vorpal Blade, harbinger of something much greater than himself. And our blood, prodding us about some prediction that we can't make any sense of. That's about it! When will the answers come? When it's too late?"

"Hmm, you called it the coming of 'darkness'," Luna said thoughtfully. "The cause of it… it couldn't be me, could it?"

"You? By 'you', I assume you mean Nightmare Moon? Well, that depends, she was born from your hate and jealousy. Are you feeling hateful and jealous right now?"

"Nay, I've never been more content," Luna said sincerely.

"Well, then that's probably not it," Celestia said with gentle confidence.

"But what else could bring about such ruin and despair?" Luna muttered.

Celestia shrugged. "I don't know… I hear they opened a punk-rock store in Ponyville. Maybe that's it."

They laughed together, then stopped abruptly as a deep rumbling sound came from the illusion of the world. They stared intently as a spot of pale gray appeared on the surface of the planet, expanding in ever-widening circles until the entire planet was a featureless and lusterless silver ball.

The princesses gaped at it in terror.

"What in the world?" Celestia breathed. "What's that supposed to be, a billiard ball?"

Luna frowned. "Perhaps… did you know that if the planet and a billiard ball were the same size, the planet would be the smoother of the two? The surface of the planet is such a minute portion of it… have I ever mentioned that?"

"Not really," said Celestia. "Only every time in your life you've ever seen a billiard ball."

Luna grinned, embarrassed. "Heh… sorry."

"No worries," Celestia muttered. "This… this is the Matrix. Isn't it?"

Luna gasped. "Oh… yes, of course!"

Celestia raced to the golden basin, activating some sort of magic on it. "When… tell me when, tell me when, please tell me when…"

Another puff of smoke rose out, surrounding the gray sphere before dissipating.

"Within two weeks?" Celestia demanded. "No… no, that's impossible. That's literally impossible—isn't it?" She turned to Luna with a pleading gaze. "But… what if it isn't impossible? What can I do? Ask my people to prepare for the very abrupt end of the world? That's all that can be done if… if…"

"Now, wait, wait," Luna said hurriedly. "There's no need for that. You're right: it is impossible. I know a thing or two about fortune-telling, sister, and it's not telling us that the Matrix will encompass the world in under two weeks." She sniffed the smoke. "No, it represents… the rebirth of the possibility, that's it. What could happen in two weeks or less that would present the possibility of… of…"

"Oh," Celestia said. Her eyes widened. "So you're saying…" She recoiled away from the gray sphere. "Oh my Hasbro!"

Luna looked equally horrified, then turned derisively to her sister. "Celestia…" she chided, stifling a giggle.

"What?" Celestia chuckled. "What else am I supposed to swear by? The common phrase is 'sweet Celestia', but that wouldn't be very appropriate coming out of me, now would it?"

They both snickered lightly, then turned once again to the sphere above the burning herbs.

"So this is what we're up against," Luna whispered. "Her. After being gone for a century times a millennium, she's coming back from the darkness."

Celestia nodded, her teeth gritted. "She is indeed… I finally know the answer… STOP LAUGHING AT ME!"

Luna jumped back, alarmed. "I… I was not laughing, sister."

"Not you," Celestia sighed. She tapped her own head with a hoof. "Him."

"Him?" Luna repeated. "Oh… oh, that's right. Discord. I had forgotten, the hold he has over your mind."

"He's known about this all along," Celestia growled. "He withheld it from me, spent all his time taunting me about the complete lack of solid hints I had… and now he's trying to exploit my terror at knowing what I'm facing… but I will not have it. SIIIIIILENNNNNCE!"

That final word was spoken in a voice that echoed and crackled with the force of an earthquake. Celestia's eyes were squeezed shut, but violent light as powerful as the sun still shone from them through her eyelids. She stood stock-still in a tensed and furious pose for a few seconds before letting out a deep, long sigh, her entire body relaxing.

"Much better," she mumbled. "But now what? We must act. But how?"

Luna shrugged. "'Tis a good question. How indeed? This is from long before our time, sister… long before any period of time comprehensible to earthly creatures. We must look to history for the answers."

"Agreed," Celestia said shakily. "Can you stand by me, sister? I… I'm frightened. I truly never thought that I would live long enough to meet… her. It's been a long time since I've been so frightened…"

"Always," said Luna. "I shall conquer your fear, sister, if you will see to mine."

Celestia nodded. "This is like nothing we've ever experienced… the biggest thing we've ever faced by a very large margin. There can be no room for doubt."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Endnotes

Remember back when I said that Part Two would probably end around chapter 72? That was just a logical assumption: Part One was 36 chapters long, so Part Two would probably be of a similar length.

I was way off. When I first mapped out all the events from the beginning to the end of Part Two, I expected a similar number to Part One, but was most alarmed. Here we are at 71, the thirty-fifth chapter of Part Two. From a storytelling perspective, this is Part Two's halfway point, the turning point upon which the entire segment changes direction. In pure chapter numbers, it's slightly less than the halfway point. We're thirty-five chapters down, with thirty-nine to go. That's right, you won't be seeing the "End of Part Two" banner until chapter 110. Woot woot!

On another note, I've begun composing a story called Legend of the Goddesses. It is a companion piece to the story you're reading right now, a prequel that's totally synced up with the Romance and the Fate of Equestria continuity. Now, I would recommend that you not start reading Legend until you've finished Part Two, but I can't really stop you if you want to take a look at it and start following it right now… it's designed to be read at any stage of Romance, including not having read it at all. The ideal order is Parts One and Two, followed by Legend, then Part Three and points beyond, but there are about a million other ways to do it as well.

Have I mentioned that there will be, at the minimum, a Part Four? Have I mentioned that I've never once put an iota of thought toward how the story might end? Well, I have now. Mentioned it, I mean, not thought about the ending. Still haven't given any consideration as to the end of the story. Not. Even. Once.

Anyway, you've all noticed the insanely speedy updating I've been doing for quite some time, however I'm going to take a break from that to really plot out the rest of Part Two and work on a few of my other projects. That's right, it's October 27, 2013, and Romance and the Fate of Equestria is officially, and cheerfully, on hiatus. Later!