We had no more real international incidents on that scale for a long time after that, something that I was quite happy about. Griffonia was pretty quiet where we were concerned, as a matter of fact. Duke Fromme was executed, of course, and his clan had pretty much zero power after that, something that kept the other two dukes in check. Sinosis was imprisoned for life, probably because Aepnet felt that it would make him suffer more, while most of his group got twenty to thirty years, save for the griffin who gave the photograph who only got two.

And I didn't really care, to be honest. As long as they weren't bothering Equestria or sacking any more of my border towns, they could do whatever they wanted internally. Made no difference to me.

And so things were pretty quiet for two years. Yeah, two years went by before anything of real note happened to me. I was quite glad for it. I did, of course, look into getting my gender restored in those two years but came up with nothing permanent. It looked like if I permanently wanted to become male I'd have to create new magic, something that I wasn't quite skilled enough to do.

Trust me, though, I was working on it.

Overall, though, life was pretty good. I had done quite a lot to reform Equestrian society in ways that I think were pretty positive. Mostly regarding my cutie mark, of course. For example, I created this organization called Operation: Hearth's Warming Foal which gathered gifts for needy foals all over Equestria so that they could have a Hearth's Warming Day too. It was a smashing success both years that I did it, and the second year it was even larger than the first, with chapters springing up in every major Equestrian city.

Let's see, what else? Well, I'd done a lot to reform foal services. I did a census of all of the orphanages and such and with that created a database for all of the foals in the system so that nopony would get lost in it. I created a department specifically for that, which dealt with things like allegations of foal abuse, getting jobs and houses for unadopted foals who turned eighteen so that they wouldn't go out on the streets, and raising money to better fund orphanages. Foal abuse plummeted with me in charge.

With a princess able to focus on schools, teacher pay and school funding went up considerably. I mean, the teachers weren't millionaires, but they were a little more comfortable financially afterwards. With it being a better paying job, more ponies went into education, meaning the desperate need for teachers went down.

The weirdest part, though was the pastries. I mean, yeah, I was the Princess of Pastries and all of that, and the ponies of Equestria took that and completely ran with it.

Basically there are precious few ponies who haven't eaten something with my cutie mark on it.

Oh sure, cutie mark cakes of famous ponies is nothing new at all. I've seen cutie mark cookies and cakes for ponies like Celestia, Luna, Cadance, the Wonderbolts, heck, even the Elements, but man did the ponies take it to an extreme. There are entire shops in Baltimare completely dedicated to selling pastries with my cutie mark on it. Heck, one even does life sized cakes of me.

It creeped me right out when I discovered that, but hey, it's not like I could really stop them.

Still, I'd take creepy life sized Princess Antares cakes to Griffonian political drama any day. I'd say that my time as a princess was turning out to be pretty successful, if I thought about it, which I had to. Daily. Though it was still a little daunting being on the same level as Celestia and Luna when they have thousands of years of experience and I'm only twenty-three. Still, I was learning. I wasn't a perfect princess, neither were they, if one reflected on the matter, but I was learning.

On this particular Sunday morning I was eating breakfast while reading the local newspaper to get a grasp on current events in my city. I mean yeah, everything big found its way to me before it made the papers usually, but some of the smaller stories were worth reading, I felt.

Life was quiet, and had been for the past two years, which, to me, was a sign that I was due for something nasty happening because that's just how it works for me.

And life, or fate, or the universe, or whatever, did not fail to disappoint.

I reached the end of the newspaper where the ads were and put it down back up. I never read the ads as most things that I wanted I already had, and the things that I did want that I didn't have weren't things that mom-and-pop stores and snake oil salesponies would have.

But sometimes all it takes is one glance to change the course of your day completely. Heck, this one glance changed my life forever, I'd say. I glanced down at the newspaper just in case there was something interesting and what I saw... well, I'm still not sure what to think about it. It was an advertisement to come to a church that was on the other side of Baltimare. It was called...

It was called...

The First Church of Her Holy Majesty Princess Antares.

My breath caught in my throat and I shot to my hooves. I picked up the newspaper in my magic and folded it in half to better look at the advertisement. What I saw left no doubt in my mind of what I was looking at.

Come to The First Church of Her Holy Majesty Princess Antares this Sunday at noon. Our fair princess is a just and kind ruler, and it is our duty to worship her to bring honor to her. She was brought to us from a world far away, after which she ascended to the most holy goddess that she is now. Come to The First Church of Her Holy Majesty Princess Antares so you too can learn what it means to respectfully worship our beloved princess and become an Antarian.

...

...

So... uh... I had my own religion based around me. I wasn't really sure of what to think of that. I mean, back on Earth I had beliefs of my own, and the bible made it quite clear of having gods before the one true God, or trying to be like him. Let's also ignore all of the crazies who claimed to be gods themselves.

And yet there I was with a church based around me. I was many things, but holy doesn't even make the list. I knew right then and there that I had to check it out just to see what this was all about. I tore the ad out of the paper and walked out of my dining room after neatly stacking my dishes. Captain Blaze was guarding the door, sucking on a lollipop. He inclined his head in a bow when I came out and took the sucker out of his mouth. It was one of my cutie mark.

"Good morning, Princess. You get enough to eat?"

"Yeah, uh..." I flipped the ad around so that he could see it. "What do you know about this?"

Captain Blaze scanned the ad for a few seconds before shrugging. "It's a newspaper article about your church."

"Yes I saw that," I said with a roll of my eyes. "Did you know I had a church devoted to worshiping me before now?"

Captain Blaze shrugged and put the lollipop back in his mouth. "No, but it doesn't exactly surprise me. I know you're relatively new here so you wouldn't know, but alicorns tend to get their own religions." He shrugged again. "I dunno. I think it's kinda cool."

"Kinda cool," I muttered. I scoffed and shook my head. "Yeah. Uh... maybe I'll check out this church of mine today. Uh..." I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples, trying to get my brain functioning again. "I'll be gone for a few hours, I think. Make sure everything runs smoothly while I'm gone, okay?"

Captain Blaze salutes me and nods. "You can count on me, Princess Antares."

"I know." I slowly began walking down the corridors of my palace towards my room. "I know."

It seems that I had some magic to perform. When I reached my room, I closed and locked my door behind me. It would take a spell that I had used once or twice to pull this off, but I knew that I could do it. Walking over to a nearby full length mirror, I ignited my horn and let the magic I was performing wash over me. My horn slowly faded from view until I was nothing more than a tall pegasus to pony eyes. I fixed the height issue next, leaving me as a normal pegasus pony. With another burst of my horn my ethereal mane and tail shortened and became normal red-orange hair. I changed my coat to the same color coat as Big Macintosh before finally changing the appearance of my cutie mark to a less ornate scorpion.

I was unrecognizable to anypony, which was precisely the point. Instead of Princess Antares I was now the pegasus Star Shine the Scorpionologist.

I pushed my room window open and spread my considerably smaller wings to take flight. If I remembered the address correctly, it would only take me about twenty minutes to get there. I hoped that I could spot it. I would hate to fly around for a while and not see it.

It turned out that I didn't have a problem spotting it. It was a relatively simple building on its own, but it was complemented by a white marble statue of me on the top, my wings spread and my head looking down on the street. When I landed and looked up at the statue, I noticed that I had a serene smile on my face. I could see the symbolism behind it. As Princess Antares I was looking down on my subjects and lovingly watching over them.

I gulped and noticed that the doors to the building were open and dozens upon dozens of ponies were walking inside. Upon further examination, I noticed that each and every one of them was wearing a red necklace with my cutie mark on it. That part nearly caused me to lose my nerve about going to this place. Again, as a guy who had beliefs of his own on Earth, this just felt... wrong. Blasphemous almost. I was here, though, and I knew that I couldn't turn back. If I did then I'd just come by next week to try and get in.

There was nothing else for it, I guess. I had to go in.

Taking a deep breath, I slowly walked towards the church. Near the doorway was a middle aged gray pegasus stallion with the largest my cutie mark necklace of them all. It was easily twice the size of the rest of theirs. He was greeting the churchgoers with hoof shakes and happy salutations, thanking all of them for coming. When I reached him, he gave me a warm smile and extended his hoof, which I shook.

"Hello there, Sister, welcome, welcome, I..." His gaze trailed down to my neck and his mouth formed an O of surprise when he saw that I wasn't wearing one of the necklaces. He held the face for a brief moment before his mouth split into an even wider smile than the one that he had before.

"Oh my goodness, do forgive me for calling you 'Sister,' madam." He bowed to me, something that just made me a little sicker. "My name is Father Snap Feather, and I'm the priest here at The First Church of Her Holy Majesty Princess Antares. This is your first time, is it not?"

I took a deep breath and forced a smile on my face. No need to let him know how weird this all was for me. "Yes, yes it is. I saw the ad in the newspaper and wanted to see what this was all about."

"Well I welcome you, Miss..." He spun his hoof around, indicating to me that he was fishing for a name.

"Oh, of course. My name is Star Shine. I'm a scorpionologist here in Baltimare."

Snap Feather gasped, and his eyes widened with almost child-like joy. "Did you say 'scorpion?' You mean you bear the mark of our most holy Princess?"

I flattened my ears and took a half step back. "Well, I don't know about that."

"Well Princess Antares is the Scorpion Princess, yes? And you..." He pointed to my flank. "Have a scorpion cutie mark, much as she does." He seized my hoof and began shaking it again. "You are most blessed, Ms. Star Shine."

"Er..." I glanced back at the ponies in line behind me, all of whom were positively beaming at me. "Thanks?"

"No, no, the pleasure is all mine." Snap Feather bowed his head to me and pointed towards the rows of padded pews. "Please make yourself comfortable. The service will begin in ten minutes time."

I nodded and thanked him before finding a spot in a back pew away from most of the ponies attending. Most of them appeared to be from around here, as I recognized a fair few of them from when they had come to my court. Some were from out of town, as I noticed a small group of the ponies that I had rescued from the griffins chatting animatedly with each other in two of the front rows. Most of the ponies seemed to be parents, as there were a lot of foals in the crowd too. If a lot of these ponies weren't teachers, I'd eat my wings.

The decorations were... interesting to say the least. On the wall opposite me where the pulpit was, was a large version of my cutie mark besides a painting of me in the same pose as the statue on the roof of the church. All around me were similar paintings of my various exploits throughout my reign. One of me reading to foals in an elementary school, another of my triumphant army leading the captured ponies out of the wilderness of Griffonia, and another still was me on my coronation day.

After ten minutes, the doors to the church closed, and organ music began playing. I recognized it as a slow, organ version of In a Gadda Da Vida, which made me remember that I had transcribed my music to notebooks before my ascension back when I was still living in Ponyville.

Okay, so the day wasn't totally uncomfortable. That was pretty awesome.

After another few minutes, the organ stopped, and the pony playing the organ turned to Snap Feather and inclined her head in a bow, which he returned. He walked up onto the stage and stood behind the pulpit, now wearing white robes, save for my cutie mark on the flank of the robes. I was beginning to notice a theme here.

Snap Feather smiled at the crowd and gave a slight chuckle. "Well, good morning."

"Good morning," the congregation replied.

"It's lovely to see you here on this joyous Sunday morning, brought to us by our wonderful Princess Antares who watches over the good city of Baltimare. I see many old faces, but I see one or two new ones in the crowd today as well. To all of you I bid thee welcome, and Princess Antares does as well."

Yeah, well... heh...

"It is my dearest wish that all of you find the joy and hope in Princess Antares that I have, and indeed I know that many of you do. Today is my favorite day of the week." Snap Feather scoffed and rolled his eyes, much to my surprise. "Because the other ones when we don't get to come here to worship are so much better, right?"

Okay, maybe I shouldn't have been surprised. Any religion worshiping me would have to have sarcasm in the services.

"Now before we begin our service, if you could all bow your heads." Snap Feather bowed his head and the congregation followed suit. "Let us pray."

And I nearly bolted right then and there. A sermon about me was one thing, In a Gadda Da Vida on a pipe organ was one thing too, but praying to me? That was terrifying. Not just because I wasn't sure what to do with it in a religious sense, but did these ponies expect me to hear them and grant their prayers?

Well, obviously I could hear them today, but the rest of the time I couldn't, I can assure you of that.

"Our dear heavenly Princess Antares," Snap Feather began, "we thank thee for watching over us while we go about our lives. We thank thee for being a just and fair ruler, and we pray for your continued reign both now and forever. Give us the strength to follow in our ways, O heavenly Princess Antares. May you give us the strength to be like you. Bless this service and our weeks going forward. Amen."

"Amen," the ponies, save for me, chorused.

"Excellent." Snap Feather nodded and raised his head, his warm, welcoming smile as wide as ever. "Now, then, as we take our offering to help the causes that Princess Antares champions such as foal services and education, I'd like to open up this time to any of you who wish to give your testimonies about our holy Princess Antares. After which we will sing some songs of worship and break for some refreshments before I get to my sermon.

That was it. I couldn't do it. I just couldn't be there for all of that. I was not a guy who really reacted well to flattery, so flat out worship was something that was too far for me. As the organ began playing a slowed down version of You Wouldn't Know, I quietly got up from my seat and walked towards the back door. I flinched when in the quiet the sound of the door opening might as well have been a cannon shot, but I had to get out of there. I chanced one last glance back and saw a teal earth pony at the pulpit, just about to speak into the microphone. What was worse was that Snap Feather had noticed that I was leaving and he was walking towards me, his kind smile still on his face.

He wasn't going to let me off so easily, it seemed.

Fleeing wasn't going to make me feel better, so I decided to let him say whatever he needed to say. I stepped out of the church and he followed behind me, gently closing the door so we could have a little privacy from the rest of the congregation. I turned to him and took a deep breath to steady myself. I almost wilted under his friendly smile. I couldn't find anything to be happy about myself.

"I'm not irritated, or anything, I'd just like to know your reasons," he said after a few moments or relative silence. "You came here but left after fifteen minutes. If you don't wish to say anything and just want to go home, I respect that completely."

"Er thanks, I guess..." I knew he was just trying to be friendly. He had no freaking idea that the pony he had devoted his life to worshiping was standing right in front of him, nor did I think that it would have been a good idea to tell him that. "I'm not sure about all of this, you know?" I said after a few moments. "I mean, I know the princesses are immortal and extremely powerful and all of that, but I've never thought of, you know worshipping any of them."

Can you imagine me worshiping Celestia? Wow, isn't that a picture?

Snap Feather nodded, his kind smile never leaving his face. "I understand, Star Shine. This isn't for everypony. I also realize that I might have been overbearing to you when I saw your cutie mark and for that I apologize. However, I do want you to at least understand why we do what we do." Snap Feather looked up to the statue of me and pointed to it. "We believe she watches over us; protects us from the evils that this world can bring. As a matter of fact, some of the ponies in there were rescued directly by Princess Antares from unfortunate situations, be it griffon slavery, abusive lives, or even poverty. We want to thank her for that." He looked back down to me. "Princess Antares has made Equestria an even more wonderful place than it was before she arrived from her home world. It is our belief that she was always destined to be who she is today, even if she was born in another universe and as another species. You just have to look to see what she has done for us here in Baltimare, heck, even in all of Equestria."

"Yeah,” I mumbled, my head down and my ears flat. "I guess."

"There's no guessing about it, Star Shine. Princess Antares has done some wonderful things, and we wish to thank her for that by striving to be the kind of pony she is." I looked up at Snap Feather and he was reaching into the front pocket of his robes. He produced a small box and offered it to me. "You don't have to take it if you don't want to, and if you never come back I will not think any less of you. We're all ponies, after all, no matter what we believe."

I slowly reached forward and took the box in my hoof. I didn't even have to look to know what it was, but I did anyway. It was one of the cutie mark necklaces. I looked back up at Snap Feather and he put a gentle hoof on my shoulder. "Don't worry about it if you aren't comfortable with what you saw. You are a pony entitled to her own beliefs. However, I do want you to think about what that necklace means for us, if just for a little while. It's just a suggestion."

"Okay," I muttered.

Snap Feather nodded before looking back to the church. "Well, I do have to go back into the service, Star Shine. I do hope to see you back, but wish you nothing but the best either way. Have a good day."

"Thanks." I shook his hoof and closed the box, putting it in my mouth to grab ahold of it. He went back inside the church to continue his services, allowing me to take wing to fly back to my palace.

I don't know how long I had been sitting there on the rooftop of my palace, one of the precious few places I could think, when she arrived. The moment I had reached my palace I changed back into myself and flew up to one of the flat rooftop sections that overlooked the city. The open box was in front of me, the necklace still perfectly placed inside. The faux-ruby scorpion shone in the sunlight, constantly reminding me of its presence.

And so I thought about... everything, I guess.

Eventually, as I said, she came. Celestia landed next to me on the rooftop and laid down next to me, gently draping a wing over my back. "I thought you could use the company after today."

I snorted and poked at the box without looking at it. "Yeah, I'm still not sure. I'm still not sure if any of today was real or if I'm going to wake up and find out that Sunday hasn't happened yet."

"I understand, TD." Celestia motioned with her other wing in the direction of Canterlot. "I have churches devoted to me as well, as do Luna and Cadance. Twilight and her friends are even revered as prophets amongst a few certain groups. Discord and Nightmare Moon have their followers as well. Canterlot is full of Celestians and Lunites. It's only natural that Antarians would appear as well."

"That..." I ignited my horn and, for the first time, lifted the necklace out of its box. "I don't know if that makes me feel any better. Not with what I'm struggling with."

Celestia frowned and tilted her head. "What do you mean?"

"There was the priest, Snap Feather was his name, and he said something to me that's really stuck with me since I found out about my church." I took a deep breath. "'Princess Antares has made Equestria an even more wonderful place than it was before she arrived from her homeworld. It is our belief that she was always destined to be who she is today, even if she was born in another universe and as another species.'"

"And that bothers you?"

"Yeah." I gently placed the necklace back inside the box and replaced the lid. "It also reminds me of something that you said when you saw me in that place after I was blasted by the Elements. You said that all of this wasn't my destiny. What... what if you were wrong?" I closed my eyes and pushed the box away. "What if this was my destiny from the moment I was born? It makes me wonder..." I opened my eyes and looked over to Celestia, a little ashamed that tears were forming for me. "Who am I? What if TD Harrison Powell is nothing more than an adolescent cover for the real me? What if who I am, who I really am, is indeed Princess Antares?"

"Would that be such a bad thing?" Celestia tilted her head. "You have done wonderful things for Equestria, TD. Operation: Hearth's Warming Foal was a gigantic success, and I daresay if you disappeared tomorrow never to be found again ponies would still do it as long as there is a Hearth's Warming celebration."

"Yeah, see, and that's what's bugging me." I groaned and rubbed my temple. "That's a good example of me wondering about my destiny. That organization was based off of something that I did back on Earth a few times. It's pretty big over there too, and that's how I knew that it would work, but that's what I'm struggling with. Am I a good princess because I have Earth experiences to draw upon, or did I go through those Earth experiences because I was destined to become..." I motioned to myself. "This?"

I scoffed and stood up, a tight feeling welling up in my chest. Everything that I had been thinking about all day was bubbling up inside of me, screaming to get out. Well, with pleasure now that Celestia was there.

"Of course that brings up all kinds of other questions that I really don't want to think about, but at the same time have to. Stuff like, 'okay, I'm destined to be a goddess. Why me? What the heck does that make my family? Did my parents give birth to a god; someone destined to be worshiped in another universe?!'"

Celestia was completely silent, just staring at me with a blank expression on her face. Even so, I could see a hint of sadness in her eyes, making me wonder if she hadn't had the same thoughts once or twice. Of course, I wasn't done. Not by a long shot.

"So what does that mean for Twilight, then, if this is my destiny? You thought it was hers, but you were wrong, weren't you?" I snorted and began angrily pacing around the rooftop. "So everything that happened to her, everything that built up to the moment that she was supposed to ascend but I took the blast for her was really for me. If Nightmare Moon hadn't come about, then I wouldn't be here because there would be no need for Twilight to find the Elements. Same thing goes for Discord. I wouldn't be surprised if the Elements were viewed as prophets in my religion too!

"Heck, what about that Starswirl spell? That turned me into an alicorn. So was that just another piece of it? Another way for the universe to make me realize that my ascension has been millennia in the making? That the dominoes that began falling that ultimately led to this have been falling for longer than I'll ever know?"

I whirled around and faced Celestia, tears brimming in my eyes just as they were starting to brim in hers. "Who am I, Celestia?! Am I TD? Am I Antares? Am I both, am I neither? Was TD just a lie? A shell, a temporary setting for the real me?! Was I born Princess Antares all along, or did I cruelly steal the fate of another, however unintentionally?!" I growled and stomped my hoof on the ground, each blow punctuating another word. "WHO. AM. I?!"

The rooftop was completely silent as Celestia and I stared at each other. Finally after a minute she quietly sighed and wiped her eyes. "I don't know, TD. I wish that I had an answer for you. I wish that more than anything. I too have asked myself the same questions, particularly those regarding my student and her being chosen by the Elements. I thought that it was her destiny to rule Equestria by my side, but on the day of her ascension, the day where all of my hard work and careful planning was to come to fruition, I found out that I was very likely wrong about her and her life. We are both uncertain, TD. Very uncertain about all of this. However, I suppose that the ultimate question is this: what are you going to do with that uncertainty? How are you going to handle it?"

"I..." I let out a single sob and collapsed onto my haunches. "I don't know. I can't help but ask these questions, even though they scare the hell out of me."

Celestia gave me a small smile and moved over to sit next to me, once again wrapping a wing around me in a hug. "I know, TD. They scare me too. Do know this: you are not alone. You never have been and you never will be."

And so Celestia held me on that rooftop, neither of us really understanding, but both trying to stay strong despite the uncertainty. It was all we could really do, I guess.

Author's Notes:

No, this chapter isn't my critique of religion. I would appreciate it if comments in the story stuck to the actual story. Any flame wars will be deleted.