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TD the Alicorn Princess

by BronyWriter

Chapter 28: The Sermon of Princess Antares

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I just had to relax

Breathe in. Breathe out. I had done this a million times. I was a princess and had literally spoken in front of a crowd of twenty thousand ponies before for three hours.

And yet this crowd of roughly a hundred freaked me out. I mean sure, these ponies weren't going to attack me, but in a way that was worse, they were just going to be disappointed if I failed to amaze them in every way. These ponies were worshiping me, after all.

So yeah, I had taken up Snap Feather's offer of doing a sermon for the church. It had been three weeks since the first meeting of the Liber Sanctus, and we had met twice since then, once with the rest of the church elders. Only Twilight was there all three times, though Pinkie and Rainbow were both there for the second. As a matter of fact, both Rainbow Dash and Twilight stood next to me. Rainbow Dash actually had her mane combed for once, and was wearing a plain gray suit with a black tie, of all things. Twilight had her mane in a bun and wore a teal dress and one of the cutie mark necklaces. As for me, I decided to go with my normal regalia. Ignoring the fact that I still wasn't comfortable wearing dresses, I didn't feel like I needed to wear anything else. It would do.

I waited in one of the back rooms of the church with the two Elements, wait, no, prophets and fidgeted where I stood, while Twilight paced around behind me, her cutie mark necklace bouncing against her chest as she moved. Rainbow Dash sat silently next to the room's window, staring out at the city.

I took a deep breath and cracked my neck before turning to the two of them and giving them my best attempt at a smile. "How are you two?"

Twilight stopped pacing and looked over at me, giving me her own weak smile. "Oh, you know, I'm just about to walk into a room filled with Celestia knows how many ponies who see me as a prophetess in your religion. So, I suppose you could say I'm a touch nervous."

"Just a touch," I snarked back. "You haven't stopped pacing since we got in here."

"Yeah, sorry about that." Twilight grimaced and flattened her ears. "I just don't really know what to do with myself. I mean, you're the one who's going to be doing all of the talking, so I'm just here for moral support, otherwise I'd be going over the sermon over and over again." Her weak smile shifted until it had a hint of wryness behind it. "And I think I've read the Liber Sanctus enough, no offense to you."

Before I could respond I heard Rainbow Dash snort, and I saw her giving Twilight a smirk with her forelegs crossed. "Never thought I'd see the day when you said that you were done with a book, Twilight."

Twilight rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue. "Just because I happen to have a fondness for books, doesn't mean that I can read every single one of them always and forever. Besides, this particular book has me as a prophet, so that's... a little different than a Daring Do book, Rainbow."

Rainbow Dash shrugged and went back to staring out the window. "Can't argue with that, I guess. But yeah, we gotta be here for TD. This is hard for him too, I guess. Harder for him. He's the pony they're all worshiping."

"Maybe." I shrugged. "If they see you as prophets and revere you, is that a form of worship? I'm not quite sure yet, especially not for them." I grimaced and shook my head. "In any case, you haven't read the final draft of the Liber Sanctus, I'll bet. Nopony has. I'll bet my wings that this little sermon here is going to make it in that book."

"Whenever it starts," Rainbow Dash said with a hint of a growl. "Seriously, how long is it going to take for him to introduce us?"

"Be patient, Rainbow." I walked over to the door and swiveled my ear towards it. "The organ music has stopped, and Snap Feather is talking, so I'd say any minute now. He's going to pray, say one or two quick words, then we're going to go out."

"Okay." Rainbow Dash got to her hooves, and both she and Twilight walked over to me. "Let's do this, then."

Twilight and I nodded, looked at each other, then with perfect synchronicity said, "any suggestions?"

Both of us flattened our ears and looked down at the ground, while Rainbow Dash groaned and facehooved. "Dang it, we are so screwed. One of us is gonna say or do something stupid."

"No, I really doubt that, Rainbow." I cleared my throat and my ears perked back up as I tried my best to center myself. "If anypony is gonna get screwed today it's me. I'm the one who has the opportunity to make this into a complete disaster." I grimaced again and looked back to the door. "They see me as omnipotent, which, as I think we all know, I most certainly am not. I decided not to put that in the sermon today for obvious reasons, but I think that what I have is good enough to get us through today. You two just have to stand there. I'm going to give my sermon, then we'll leave, okay? Well... er..." One of my ears twitched. "That or we'll stay and greet my worshipers. I'm not quite sure yet. I've never made it through all of one of these. Needless to say, you two don't need to stay any longer than you feel comfortable."

Rainbow Dash vigorously shook her head and floated in the air so she could cross her forelegs. "Nope, we're staying as long as you are, TD. We're ready to leave when you say."

I couldn't help but give a small smile at that. I reached out a hoof and gave Rainbow a small hug. "Thanks, Dash. Element of Loyalty indeed."

Dash rolled her eyes, but the slight smirk on her face showed me that she liked the appreciation. "Yeah, yeah, don't get all mushy on me, TD."

I turned my smile to Twilight and put a comforting hoof on her shoulder. "And the same goes for you too. I know this has to be hard considering, well, everything that's happened in the past two years, but I really appreciate everything that you've done for me."

Twilight's weak smile returned, though slightly stronger than before, and she came in for a proper hug that I happily returned. "Anytime, TD. You're my friend, and it is my honor to help you, princess of Equestria or no."

"Thanks, Twilight. Thanks."

The door behind us opened, and Snap Feather poked his head in and nodded to us. I returned it, and all three of us took a few deep breaths. I turned around to face the door, and Rainbow Dash and Twilight moved to flank me. I turned my head to each of them in turn.

"It is time, Frodo."

Twilight and Rainbow Dash each gave me a confused look, and I smirked at them. "Just making a joke to calm my nerves." My smile falls and I flutter my wings. "Let's do this."

I moved forward and, despite an irrational part of my brain screaming at me to do otherwise, I walk into the main hall of the church to stand behind the pulpit.

The effect was immediate.

The second the churchgoers saw not only their goddess but two of their prophets, a great cry went through the crowd, and almost everypony got on their knees and began bowing to me. Needless to say, it was incredibly awkward for all three of us. I mean, Snap Feather is one thing, but a hundred of them is something else entirely. I cleared my throat, and every single one of them froze, their eyes on me, not a single one blinking.

"No need for that, my children." I raised my hoof and smiled warmly at them. "I'm here to give the sermon today. I'm not here to punish you for anything. You may take your seats."

A wave of "yes Princess Antares" went out, and each pony sat down, their eyes never leaving me. I continued my serene smile and adjusted the microphone on the pulpit so that it was on a good level. "Now, today I will be talking about what you do when life hoofs you something that you're not quite sure how to deal with." I scoffed and rolled my eyes. "Believe me, I'm an expert on the subject." A token few ponies chuckled at that, which gave me a bit of a confidence boost. "Now, I understand that life can be difficult. You can never truly plan for anything with one hundred percent certainty. When I lived on my home world, I had plans that I would graduate college, get a teaching post in a small town, marry a nice girl, maybe have two or three children, and life would go on like that." I gave them a small smirk. "As you can see, that's not how it worked out.

"As you all know, I was brought here to Equestria, ruining every single one of those plans, so I readjusted. I got a job in Ponyville as a worker for the town, taught the Ponyville foals about my world, maybe planned to get a degree in teaching so that I could teach foals full-time, and so on. Then the Elements of Harmony caused me to ascend, and those plans were completely destroyed as well. For the second time in around a year, my life took a completely different turn than I had anticipated, even after the first change."

I started to feel more confident as I talked. The words flowed more naturally, and the nerves faded away as each of them listened with rapt attention. They weren't booing me off of the stage, so that made me feel a lot better.

"Now, a change in your plans can mean a lot of different things: it can be something as simple as you want to go on a picnic and it starts to rain so you have to eat indoors, or it can be as complex as you're a window washer who gets blasted by magical artifacts and changes species and ascends into a goddess princess of all ponykind. What separates ponies is how they react to those changes.

"Now, obviously not all changes are bad. A pony could plan on having to work overtime for a month to pay rent and then he or she gets a major promotion that means that they don't have to do that anymore. It's easy to react positively to those changes, because we feel that life has smiled down upon us, and we're better off than before. But what about those bad changes? What about the ones where it starts to rain, or you lose your job, or the simple life you led that you loved is completely turned upside down and you find yourself with a lot of responsibility that you don't know how to handle?"

I paused for a moment to materialize a glass of water that I took a deep drink from. As well as this is going, my throat is getting a bit parched, and I need a tiny break. Once the glass is empty, I make it vanish and clear my throat.

"Now, I'm not going to say that you're a bad pony unless you meet it head on with a smile on your face and determination in your heart, though that is certainly not a bad way. It is completely one hundred percent okay to be disappointed, sad, or even angry when life hands you a change or a challenge to your plans that ruin what you expected or wanted. Those are reasonable equine emotions, and nopony should blame you for being mad that you got laid off because your job is downsizing. The problem comes when you let that consume you; when you can't let it go because you're so upset or mad that something that you deem unfair happened. Nothing will come of that, and you cannot adjust to what life throws at you.

"Finding positives in situations when your plans change is a very good way to cope, though I know that can be very hard sometimes. I will admit, that sometimes things happen that just are not fair. Somepony who does half the work with half of the dedication will get the promotion because he's friends with the boss. Some loophole will let the wrong side win in a lawsuit. Life can be difficult, but that doesn't mean that it is impossible to weather.

"Adjusting is an important part of weathering the storm. Sometimes it takes a little bit of effort and sometimes it takes a lot. The rain ruined your picnic? Well, set up a tent inside your living room and have the picnic in there. You got passed over for the promotion that you were expecting? Reflect on why that might be." A wry smile crossed my face. "You go from dishwasher to alicorn goddess? Use the resources available to you to get through. There will always be ponies willing to help, which brings me to my next point.

"One of the key themes in the Liber Sanctus is friendship, and for good reason. It is the key idea that keeps the Elements of Harmony together. It is my friendship with the Elements of Harmony, the other Princesses, and even my staff and snarcasti-guard at the palace that helps me through the time when I don't know where life is taking me and I feel that I cannot plan for what lies ahead, even though I would love to. So too do I urge you to form those bonds and connections. Ponies cannot do, well, life alone. From the very moment that we are born we form connections with our parents, and maybe even siblings that we may have.

"Form connections. If life gets you down, relish those moments where you have a beer with the guys at five every Wednesday. Go have lunch with your marefriend and tell her how much you love her. Be there for each other, is what I'm saying. Nopony can endure life alone, and with twenty million ponies in Equestria, nopony has to."

Time to wrap up. They're all still listening with complete attention. I think it's going well, but I could finish up and have ponies start saying "maybe I'd better convert to Discordism instead."

That would be awkward.

I pushed those thoughts out of my mind and continued.

"Plans are flimsy things at the best of times. Nopony truly knows what the future brings. Not even me, I'm sorry to say. Sometimes life throws things at you that you are not prepared for, but not all is lost when that happens. Take heart that there are ponies around to support you, and I urge you to support other ponies going through hard times." I inclined my head in a small bow. "Thank you."

The entire church was dead silent as I finished my sermon, something that caused that uneasy feeling to well up in my chest again. This whole thing hinged on their reaction to it. I mean, I liked it, but if they didn't then that was a different story.

Turns out that I didn't need to worry.

After fifteen seconds of silence one pony began clapping, and that opened the floodgates. Each and every pony shot to their hooves and began cheering and stomping so loudly that I began to wonder if an earthquake wasn't going to go through the church. I looked over to Snap Feather and saw a huge smile on his face and tears of what I can only assume to be joy streaming from his eyes. Rainbow Dash walked up behind me and poked me on the side, causing me to look down at her. She was smiling, and I smiled back.

"I think they like you, TD."

I snorted and rolled my eyes. "Yeah, maybe just a little."

"Definitely a good sermon, TD," Twilight said, coming up on my other side. "You're really a leader to these ponies."

"Yeah..." I looked out into the crowd, neither my smile nor their stomping and cheering having wavered in the slightest. "I suppose that I am."

* * * *

That evening found me back on my usual rooftop spot.

I still couldn't really believe how well it had gone, even though I had been going through that day over and over again in my mind. I kept looking for some flaw in everything to fixate on, but there wasn't really anything that I could think of.

Snap Feather all but assured me that, with my permission, that sermon would be making it into the Book of the Scorpion in the Liber Sanctus. I expected nothing less from him and gave my full permission. I mean, I wasn't going to just give that sermon then say that he couldn't use it.

Twilight, Rainbow, and I didn't stay for the rest of the service, instead choosing to hang out in a cafe not far from the church with me disguised, but we did go back to the church to greet the churchgoers as they were leaving. I got a lot of bows and I kissed a few foals on the head, but nothing that I hadn't been dealing with since my ascension.

Overall, I'd say that the day went exceptionally well. I'd have to go back and do another one. I know that Twilight said she was thinking about doing one for herself.

Huh, me getting involved with my own religion. I didn't see that coming, even when I found out about it.

As I stared out into the horizon, I once again saw the speck of white flying towards me. No doubt she heard about today and wanted to talk about it. Well, with pleasure. I was always willing to talk with her by that point. I scooted over a few inches while she flew closer to me, and I saw that this time she brought the wine and glasses to start. Well, it wasn't necessarily an alcohol day, but I wasn't going to complain. She landed next to me and gave me a wing hug and the two of us exchanged a nuzzle.

"Good evening, TD. How are you?"

"I'm doing well." I motioned with a wing towards my church. "I gave my sermon today."

"Yes, I was there." I raised my eyebrow and looked over to her, and saw that she had a mischievous smile on her face. "You may not have noticed, but there was a pink maned pegasus mare in the back named Sunny Skies. She..." Celestia chuckled and poured the wine. "She quite enjoyed your sermon."

I gave an amused scoff and took the wine glass she offered me. "You tricky little alicorn goddess."

"Well I couldn't very well miss that, TD." Celestia shrugged and took a sip of her own wine. "The matter of your religion makes you uncertain, and I wish to help you through that uncertainty." I couldn't help but notice a twinkle in her eye when she spoke next. "Something that I think your words extolled, did they not?"

I snorted and drained my glass. "Yes, yes I suppose that they did."

"I want you to know that I'm very proud of you, TD." Celestia set her wine glass down and put her hoof on mine. "You are not the same pony that took the throne those two years ago in all of the best ways, and it most certainly shows. I foresee you being an even greater princess than you already are, and you are a great one. If misfortune befell us all and you vanished, history would look upon you with great reverence."

"Probably not as much as you, I'll bet."

Why wasn't I moving Celestia's hoof? For that matter, why did I nuzzle her?

Celestia chuckled, and she didn't move her hoof either. "TD, you mustn't compare yourself to me. I've been ruling longer than you could comprehend, but I can say without a doubt that if I had to choose between my start as a princess and your start as a princess, I would choose yours."

"Well that's comforting."

No, I wasn't being sarcastic, that was comforting. It's nice to know that you're not screwing up in every possible way when you're ruling a nation. Believe me, when you have as much power as I do, you can screw up in every way imaginable, and tons of ways you didn't imagine. To hear Celestia, a veteran who had been doing the job for thousands of years, say that I was doing something right was nice.

Why wasn't I telling her to take her hoof off of mine?

"Uh, Celestia?"

"Hmm?"

I cleared my throat and looked down at our touching hooves. "So maybe I'm reading too much into this, but you've had your hoof on mine for a few minutes now, and I was wondering--"

I was cut off when I felt her kiss my neck.

Well, that didn't leave any doubts at all. I mean, yeah, it was just a little peck, but... yep. No doubts.

I snapped my head over to Celestia, who had taken her hoof off of mine and was furiously blushing, something utterly impossible to hide with a snow white coat.

"I'm sorry, TD," she whispered. "I overstepped my bounds. You may be my best friend, but that was too much."

"I'm not mad, Celestia. You're my best friend too." I glanced over at the bottle of wine and floated it over to me. I took a quick swig and scooted closer to Celestia. "I didn't really... mind, I guess."

So I gave her a quick peck on the neck.

Now it was her turn for her to snap her head over to me, her eyes wide as dinner plates. "TD? Are you sure?"

I shrugged. "Haven't been totally sure of much over the past three years, but, uh..." I put the wine bottle down. "Given our natural alicorn tolerance for alcohol, I'm going to guess it's not that, so if we end up regretting it we have nothing to blame it o--"

My words were cut off when she tackled me and pressed her lips against mine.

* * * *

I opened my eyes and raised my head off of my pillow, smiling when I heard the birds chirping. I slid out of my bed and stretched my forelegs and my wings out. The sun was shining over the land, and I had some day court and appointments to get ready for. Well, if they were as successful as yesterday then I was going to have a good day.

I went over to my bathroom and got into the shower. I was running out of my favorite shampoo. I'd have to tell my staff to get a few bottles more. You would not believe how much shampoo a pony of my size goes through in even as much as a week. Having said that, my ethereal mane and tail were self-cleaning. That was pretty cool.

I turned off the water and dried myself with a quick spell before heading back out to my room to make my bed and put my regalia back on before breakfast.

Only, I found somepony already lying on my bed.

A large white celestial somepony on my bed.

Uh...

Somehow I think she sensed that I was standing over her, and she woke up. She turned over in bed and looked up at me, smiling her trademark smile at me. "Good morning, TD. Has the spell worn off yet?

"Spell?" Somehow that was the trigger word, and everything came rushing back to me. I glanced between my legs before looking up at her and nodding. "Uh, yes, yes it has."

Celestia clicked her tongue and sat up in my bed. "Pity. Well, I suppose that we can always just... uh..."

Something clicked for her, and her smile faded and her eyes widened. She blinked once and brought her hooves up to her mouth. "Oh dear," she whispered.

I grimaced. "Just hit you, huh?"

"Well, I think I just began realizing the ramifications two of Equestria's princesses in a relationship."

I nodded as a few of those began running through my mind. "Yeah." I continued nodding and looked out the window, and noticed for the first time that there was a storm on the horizon. The pegasi had scheduled a rainfall for today, it seemed. "Yeah."

Author's Notes:

Now no, I'm not making the TDlestia ship a HUGE deal (like "we now need a romance tag") but it's there. I guess I figured that I could justify it because, well, I've built up and strengthened their relationship in what I think is a realistic way. So for those of who who may not be a fan of the idea, there is going to be a lot more to this story.

This story is going to be loooonnnng.

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