Celestia wandered away from the murmur of adult conversation and the peal of foals’ laughter from the party in the courtyard. She tread slowly into one of the marble lined galleries that flanked the gardens. The noise quieted and the lights dimmed considerably here, away from everypony. She didn’t need to go far to be alone.

Not that she wanted to be alone. Celestia merely liked the illusion.

In the darkness that surrounded her, Celestia could feel her shadow edging closer, waiting patiently at a polite distance. Celestia looked out over the garden and took a seat by one of the marble columns that supported the vaulted gallery ceiling. She leaned against its base to shield herself a little more from the near-by party. Her shadow would need a stronger illusion of solitude than she did.

“Join me,” Celestia turned her head and looked over her shoulder and added, “please?”

Her shadow, her Most Faithful Student, Twilight Sparkle, stepped forward, her hooves making tiny ‘clop’ noises on the marble. She bowed formally when she got a few strides away from Celestia. The monarch could smell the alcohol coming off her from there.

Not that Twilight reeked of it. She’d always been a very light drinker, even socially. It put her to sleep after only a couple of glasses, depending on the quality of the booze consumed. If Celestia’s nose was to be trusted, she could just pick up a hint of mint schnapps on Twilight’s breath. Twilight drank schnapps for two reasons: whenever a theoretical physics equation that spanned two chalkboards needed to be stared into submission, or she needed to overcome a potentially embarrassing and unavoidable social situation where she had already exhausted every other option to avoid it.

Contrary to rumor, Celestia knew her ass wasn’t as wide as two chalkboards or covered in math, so it must be the later reason that her shadow chose to drink.

“How are you this beautiful night, Twilight?” Celestia smiled. “My sister knows how to hold an impressive party, wouldn’t you agree?”

Twilight closed the distance between them and took a seat next to her. She grinned at Celestia, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She looked a little nervous. Celestia supposed that the alcohol was to thank for keeping the little unicorn from being in full on manic mode. Something was bothering Twilight.

“Oh yes! I agree, Princess. Princess Luna does put on a good party. I should know, I helped her plan it after all.” Twilight giggled, her nervousness leaking away slightly. Celestia watched the muscles in Twilight’s back relax a bit more.

“Did you? I didn’t know. Lulu wanted to take care of everything so that I might enjoy the party as much as all the other guests.” Celestia chuckled as she remembered her exchange with Luna a month previously. “You should have seen her face when she put in the request. She thought I would refuse her. How could I, when this night is hers above all other nights?”

“I can imagine.” Twilight lowered her voice and looked away and out into the moonlit gardens beyond the darkened gallery. “Are you having fun? Mingling with us morta - er, common - ponies?”

“Of course I am having fun.” Celestia leaned down and nuzzled Twilight’s cheek. “It has been far too long since I was able to put aside the crown and just be myself. It is an opportunity that I wouldn’t pass up for the world.”

Celestia chuckled again, deep and melodic.

“Even if I was in disguise most of the night.”

“In your defense, it was a very good Rarity costume.” Twilight giggled again and looked back at Celestia, her smile bright in the dim light. “She will never let you forget it, of course!”

“Of course.”

Celestia had thought of the costume herself after much hemming and hawing over what seemed like thousands of choices. It came down to elegant simplicity at the end. Her coat nearly matched Rarity’s. A couple of bottles of temporary coat dye fixed that. A commercially available wet application temporary cutie mark over her sunburst and a purple wig - both of which had to be enlarged - covered the rest of the details. The only magic Celestia needed to employ was hiding her wings.

With the physical costume complete, she just needed to project the mare’s personality. For two hours Celestia pranced as she mingled with guests, adding just a hint of extra sashaying to put it over the top. She vogued whenever she wasn’t moving. She called everypony ‘darling!’ and slipped a little snooty giggle into her speech every now and then. She commented on everypony’s mane styling and costumes, making sure to apply her more generous compliments to those industry and social leaders that would be best able to further the true Rarity’s fashion business in Canterlot and beyond.

“I…” Twilight started, but her voice faded out and she remained facing the garden instead of looking at Celestia.

She let Twilight think about whatever it was she wanted to say in silence. Celestia knew ponies and how they worked. She sat quietly, absorbing the cool breeze and dulled sounds of the party the way a plant drew in water and sunlight, letting it seep into her at a comfortably slow and steady rate. Twilight would spit it out in due time.

Eventually, Twilight turned her head and regarded Celestia. “I was wondering… er, if you… er, Princess. If you ever thought about being with a common pony?” Twilight shook her head violently. “Ahem! Hahaehehe...heh… I meant to say: ‘about being a common pony.’ You know, because you’re not a common pony. Not that that is bad! Nononono! I mean, you’re perfection in pony form! How could you not being a common pony be wrong?! Heheheeee…”

Celestia blinked. She hadn’t expected that line of questions from her shadow.

“That is an unusual question, even from you, my Faithful Student.” Celestia chewed the inside of her cheek for a moment, thinking about which answer to use this time.

“I would have to say,” Celestia started slowly, “that the short answer is: yes. I have thought about it from time to time. Putting aside my crown and all its responsibilities has been a temptation I have battled before. There are a great deal of complications with the ruler of a nation just quitting her day job. Even if only for a short while.”

Celestia smiled and nuzzled Twilight’s chest, making the unicorn gasp and swell. “We’ve discussed those most obvious problems before. Though, with Luna returned and the populace accepting her back into their hearts, most of the basics of rulership and the running of the kingdom are actually covered. As this Nightmare Night party demonstrates rather aptly. If I chose, I could be Celestia and not Princess Celestia, for a short time. But, I fear, a long term stay among the ‘common pony’ folk, as you refer to them, would be painful for me.”

Celestia watched Twilight’s face become carefully guarded. “What do you mean by that?”

“I am an alicorn. My physical stature alone sets me apart in a sea of ponies. I am of all the tribes while being a member of none of them. My magical prowess is second to none. I control the sun. I am effectively immortal. These differences might be ignored for a while, but they could not be ignored forever, Twilight.”

She watched Twilight’s face fall. Twilight’s lips went limp, her ears drooped and her eyebrows slowly lowered. Celestia could hear the slow release of breath from her student. She knew the real answer Twilight was searching for. She could lie. Twilight never doubted anything Celestia said to her. She had told far greater lies for less. She had stood by, confident in the truth while every pony around her wallowed in an untruth and made it a part of the very culture she shepherded. Those few ponies that asked her these very questions with the own hearts on display however, they deserved better than a lie.

In truth, Celestia did not know how she felt about it. Friendship was a great and powerful thing that could be cultivated with many and stretched across time and even beyond the grave. Love, on the other hoof, was destructive in both the best and worst possible ways. It could give a pony purpose greater than their cutie mark. Or it could destroy them. Love was solely responsible for taking more than a few of her former lovers away from her.

She thought about the young unicorn at her side. Another shadow in a very very long line of shadows. Twilight was special. They had each been special, in their own ways, but Twilight stood out even among the elite company she had no idea that she kept. Twilight’s mastery of Friendship was incredible. She was the savior of Equestria thrice over. Twilight was smart, honest, earnest, funny and capable. She certainly wasn’t hard on the eyes either. She was everything a pony could wish for.

But whenever Celestia looked at Twilight, she still saw that awkward foal that came to her all those years ago and caused such a commotion. A starstruck Twilight Sparkle, barely taller than Celestia’s ankles, gazing up at her in complete reverence was the image in her mind when she thought about the mare.

Mare.

Celestia let her eyes trail slowly over Twilight. She’d become fully grown and well formed in what seemed the blink of an eye. Twilight’s costume was a simple robe styled after Clover the Clever’s, during her archmagus years. It clung to her body along her flanks and dock, outlining her figure just as much as it concealed it. Twilight had a body much like her ancestor’s, with wider hips and delicate features. Her evenly styled mane framed a cute face and a surprisingly girthy horn.

Celestia felt a blush start and flicked her eyes away. She cursed silently as her imagination supplied a vision of Twilight twisted up in the bedsheets in Celestia’s personal chambers. Celestia blinked. Her mind defied her attempt to shake the image loose by replacing the sheets with straps and Neighponese style rope bindings.

Celestia willed those thoughts away. She could admit Twilight was attractive and no longer a filly by any stretch of the imagination. She focused on her heart, listening to it beat ever so slightly quicker. Perhaps she could love again. Perhaps she could let another pony, another shadow, close to her inner self.

“Twilight,” Celestia tilted her head against the pillar at her side, “I know that isn’t the answer you are looking for. You wonder if I ever think about being with a common pony.”

Twilight jerked her head up and swallowed nervously. “I...I-I don’t know what you m-mean, Princess!”

Celestia smiled gently. “The short answer is the same. Yes, I have thought that. I am thinking about it now, honestly.”

Twilight sputtered something that might have been recognizable language at some point. Now that she’d allowed her mind to think of Twilight as a grown mare worthy of admiration, Celestia couldn’t help but see her fluster as adorable.

“The long answer is… complicated. It would have to be with somepony very special and of course, very important to me. Somepony I could trust. Somepony that would be able to put aside all the things that set me apart from other mares. Somepony that could accept me as just Celestia.”

Celestia sighed and looked down at a furiously blushing Twilight. “There are far too few ponies in this world that could do all that and be who I need, as well as deal with the pressures of being my royal consort. They would need a good bit of stamina too. They would also need to like taller mares.”

Celestia giggled, her smile brightening as Twilight joined her. Her shadow leaned in closer as a light breeze picked up in the garden, scooped up fallen leaves and swirled them about. There came a loud shout from the party followed by a dull roar of a cheer from the crowd. Under all that noise, Celestia barely heard Twilight’s whisper.

“Do you know… who… who you want to be with?”

Celestia stretched a wing out, the magic hiding them dissipating as she did so, and laid it across Twilight’s back, blocking the wind. She lowered her head and enclosed her shadow, her Faithful Student, inside a circle of herself. Celestia brought her muzzle up to Twilight’s ear and whispered back to her.

“I know now.”