The entire room was silent after…well, considering her use of the Royal Canterlot Voice, I was pretty sure the whole castle heard Celestia’s declaration. And I was about as stunned at the whole thing as everyone else.

In front of us all, Celestia blazed with the same fiery aura that I had seen her us against Grogar to near-lethal effect. The last bit of shouting having lit her up.

I knew Celestia had been having problems with the whole princess thing. She came to me every night grumbling at something Lord This or Lady That did to piss her off. I did my best calm her down while listening to all her troubles and either put her mind on other things with movies and make out sessions, or helped her relax with some cuddling and relaxing massages. But it didn’t seem to be working all that well.

Hell, she even outright told me and the girls that she had grown to hate her job before we came home. But, I hadn’t really thought about it all that much. I mean...everyone gripes about their jobs, right? That’s why it’s called work. And even if there was the occasional jackass that she had to listen to, the amount of ponies Tia helped and her support from the rest of Equestria more than offset that.

Then there was the thing with Luna…and Sunset…and…me with the gender problem stuff…again. All of which apparently had been building up for the past few days into an eruption of both fiery magic and temper that had literally set the Solar Princess on fire.

And the spark that started that far still sat, or…cowered really, on his ill-gotten throne.

“You…what?” Twilight asked from behind Tia with a tilted head. Although I didn’t really pick up that bit of pony body language, I was pretty sure I had my own little look of WTF placed onto my pony face that mirrored Twilight’s confusion.

We three little ponies and one human winced when Tia turned around to glare at us with eyes that looked to be made from flame. “I said I quit,” the goddess replied in a voice so full of magic that it reverberated in my freaking horn. “I’m done. Finished! For one thousand years I have dealt with this kind of…foalishness from the nobility! And for a thousand years, I have ignored it, tolerated it, parlayed with it to maintain…harmony. To keep from causing too much of an upset in Equestria, to avoid hurting the very ponies that make me want to SCREAM! But despite everything I have sacrificed, suffered, and done for all of Equestria in this past thousand years, THIS is their response? Well, they want me gone, then so be it. I’ll leave them to Luna.”

With that, Celestia turned around and stomped towards the doors. Twilight immediately followed, carefully moving around the burning wake that she left. “Princess wait! Y-You can’t just-just quit!” the little alicorn said in a pleading voice while she chased after the goddess.

Celestia stopped and looked back to the smaller, non-combusting alicorn. “In the past year, I have once again hurt my sister in the worse way I ever could, pushed the problems involving the mare I have made my daughter onto another, and…ignored my own needs. All for the sake of Equestria. Of whom THEY are supposed to be the best of! And what do they do? They whine and complain as have generations before them. But never before have I had to suffer such insolence.

“So…I’m done,” she said before looking over to Luna. “Congratulations Sister, you are now the High Princess of Equestria. If you would accept some parting advice, do not be as gentle with these little ponies as I was. While some weeds in your garden can be put to good use, it isn’t worth the trouble the others give when they become too brazen.”

And with that, Celestia stormed out of the throne room while the rest of us watched.

From her place behind us all, Sunset looked back to the throne, and then the door, and then to us. “Um, I’m going to go try and talk to her,” she said before glancing over to Rainbow and me. “You two coming?”

“Uh…” Rainbow managed before she got back into the air with a few flaps of her wings. But even in her element, the hesitation didn’t vanish. “Should we? I mean, Twilight’s kind of got this, right?”

Sunset frowned back at the pegasus. “The last time Celestia got angry enough to make snap decisions, she kicked me out of the palace before assigning a pair of pegasi to do it, and I ended up on two legs for the next thirty moons,” she said with a bit of resignation. “And do you really think Twilight of all people is going to argue with Princess fucking Celestia for more than thirty seconds before caving in to anything my mom wants her to?”

I had to admit, Sunset had a point. If Tia really was telling everyone to take her job and shove it, then Twilight would be helping her pack by the time they got to Tia’s room. Despite Tia’s attempts to make Twilight argue with her whenever she had a bad idea, the little purple pony still had her lips firmly planted on Celestia’s ass.

After a few seconds of thoughtful frowning, Rainbow nodded. “Good point. Let’s go.”

I took a look at the trail of blackened hoof prints in Celestia’s wake. While I wasn’t really afraid of Celestia no matter how combustible she had gotten, her little stunt kind of made me want to stick around for a few more seconds. So I glanced over to Tia’s kid and our shared girlfriend, then to the biggest mare in the room before addressing my girls. “Uh, I’ll stay here with Princess Luna if you guys don’t mind. Plenty of ponies to talk to her already and…I kind of want to see what Lulu does to these idiots.”

Luna turned her head towards me with a raised eyebrow. “Lulu? Really?” she asked in an almost bored tone, even if she still Smelled pretty miffed. “You address your new High Princess in such a manner?”

“Y-You are not a princess anymore!”

Blueblood’s squeak of a demand made both me and Luna look back at the dickhead sitting on Tia’s throne with about an equal amount of anger between us. He flinched, and then held up the old document in his magic between him and the dark goddess as if it were a shield. “The Equestrian Accords-urk!”

Luna’s magic clamped down on the stallion’s muzzle, and then quickly lashed out to ensnare the rest of his friends before the Princess of the Night yanked Blueblood from where he was sitting and forced him to the ground in front of the goddess with a painful landing. “Now that I have removed your unworthy plot from my sister’s seat, let me explain something to you nephew,” the goddess began with gritted teeth.

“Back when Equestria was first founded, the unicorns were much as you are now. And with time, they actually got a bit worse. You see, once the three tribes were united, a unicorn would come along every now and then with a talent for growing things at an impossible rate, or managing the weather as well as any pegasus could. This of course caused several of them to get stupid, and think they didn’t need the other tribes. Over time this sentiment grew to corrupt the minds of the most powerful nobles below the crown itself, and eventually Princess Platinum was actually forced to add on an amendment to the Accords. This amendment would allow for the oldest pony of the royal family within the unicorn tribe to remove Celly and myself from power should it be decided we were unfit to rule. The two of us even agreed to it since no one pony should have unlimited power in a nation, no matter how benevolent a ruler she is. There needed to be a check in place if ever something happened to prove the two of us unfit to rule.

“And with that, the unicorn houses grumbling about their innate superiority finally shut up. After all it was a unicorn who had the real say about who ruled Equestria.” Then Luna’s smile turned to pure venom as she knelt down to look Blueblood eye to eye. “And then my little pony, a year later…once Celly and I had gone about destroying any sort of political, economic, and military power those unicorn houses had, my best friend Princess Platinum adopted us.”

I watched, colored impressed as Blueblood’s eyes widened. “Wrrmpth?”

Luna reached down with a shoed hoof to roughly pat the unicorn on the head while still wearing her dark smile. “Haven’t you ever wondered how in the hay you could possibly be related to either of us? You are certainly no alicorn after all. I would have thought it obvious even to the most peanut-brained fool that we do not share a blood kinship.

“As for your stupid little law that you thought would allow you to kick Celly and myself out of Canterlot,” she continued as her grin slowly dissolved. “It applies to her, not you! Celestia is the oldest member of the unicorn royal line by decree of our adopted mother! And that makes what you, your friends, and what I’m betting is a few members of the royal guard like the one who opened the door for us have done a rather serious offense. So…”

Luna’s horn flared even brighter, and I averted my eyes a second before the telltale sound of teleportation was followed by hooves on marble. As the light vanished half a dozen bat ponies, or ‘lunar pegasi’ as I had found Luna preferred to call them, had been magically summoned to the throne room. “My loyal guardsponies, take these infidels and my erroneous nephew to the palace dungeons! I will deal with him in an official manner after I have shared some thoughts with my sister.”

Me and Luna found a small mob of ponies outside Tia’s royal apartments. Not the torch and pitchfork kind of mob, this one was way too well dressed to even know what a real farming implement looked like. What stood outside Celestia’s rooms was a bunch of gussied up ponies next to several more wearing a mix of white and gold uniforms that marked them as palace servants.

As to why they were there. It was probably because of the golden half-dome that surrounded Tia’s door, preventing access.

And they weren’t rabble-rousing like a normal mob either…

“Okay, fine your stuff is packed. Now would you please tell me what the hay this is all about?”

…not with Twilight going on as she was.

“M-Mom, if this is because of me-”

“Of course it’s because of you!” Celestia shouted from behind the shield. I noticed that her voice had lost the twang of power that cam with her fiery rage mode, and internally sighed. “And you, and you!”

Which was followed by a rather tense silence that was only broken by Luna’s loud sigh. “Stand back everypony,” the princess commanded. As the crowd parted, she trotted up to the door, and touched her horn to the glowing barrier.

As far as defenses went, the one Celestia threw up didn’t look all that strong. But, I doubted anyone aside from Luna would have even thought to try braking through one of the Solar Princess’s barriers. When Luna did her thing, the magical wall had all the resistance of a soap bubble.

“And her! And him!” the white alicorn went on as soon as we entered, pointing a hoof at each of us. As per my theory, Celestia had stopped with the spontaneous combustion, and was looking like her usual sexy self. Angry, but still sexy.

Then there was the state of her quarters. I saw a large crate big enough to fit a pair of ponies in. The small tingle in my horn told me it was magical in nature, but not which spell was cast on it. Although, the nearly empty bookshelves, missing coffee table, and various other little knickknacks that I had seen in Tia’s apartment were a big enough clue to tell me what was going on.

Celestia was actually getting ready to leave Canterlot.

I took in a deep breath and sighed while Luna restored the barrier behind us. Unlike her sister’s version, the one she threw up wasn’t transparent, nor did it allow sound through. The area outside the door simply ended in a wall of dark blue. “Sister, what are you doing?”

I got a whiff of annoyance from Celestia. “I would have thought that was made clear. I’m abdicating the throne and leaving Canterlot.” She looked over to the purple alicorn. “Twilight, I’ll be staying at my old castle for the foreseeable future with the three of you,” she said before tapping a hoof to her lips. “You’ll probably need to get a bigger bed.”

“Uh Tia…maybe it would be a good idea to calm down and think this through,” I spoke up while feeling more than a bit of nervousness. I seen and Smelled that Celestia had calmed down quite a bit, but she also seemed ready to flare back up at a moment’s notice as well. “Don’t wanna make any rash decisions here, right?”

The look Celestia shot me with would have probably killed me if she still be in super sayian form. “Just because I am making a decision quickly does not mean it isn’t the right one.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sunset mumbled.

For the briefest instant I saw Celestia tense as the result of her last big rash decision asked her a question. But, it didn’t seem to slow her down for long. If anything, her Scent became even more…indignant than it had been before Sunset asked the question. “How much time have we spent together since you returned to Equestria?”

Sunset pulled her head back as the angry princess spun to face her. Then she looked down to her hands and counted with the help of those helpful human phalanges. “Um…well…there were those two nights in Canterlot, and that time in the Crystal Empire before the uh…coronation, when I…got hurt.”

The reason for Sunset’s hesitation with that last one became obvious when I saw Celestia’s anger slip into emotional pain for a brief instant. Then, she just used it as more rage fuel.

“Weeks since your return, and I barely make a few hours in a day for you outside of a hospital visit!” Celestia exclaimed, back to her angry tone. “When you were a filly, I made sure to spend time with you. To have lunch with you, to take you to the Canterlot Fair, or the rodeo, or whatever the buck else I could find in town that I knew you would enjoy. But as you grew older, I stopped! I just…picked my duties to Equestria over you. Time and time again I went to a meeting rather than take you to a circus, or dealt with an annoying noble instead of doing what I should have been doing, loving you!”

As Celestia’s verbal assault on Sunset abated, the human held up her hands in a stopping gesture. “Oh come on, that’s not the way things were at all! You made plenty of time for me. It was my fault I turned into a brat, not yours.”

Celestia didn’t seem all that convinced. “And will you excuse my actions of the past few weeks too?” she said. “I am the most powerful and experienced enchanter in Equestria! Twilight sends me a friendship report with some worries about Rainbow’s ability to keep a pet turtle, and I spend half a day enchanting a child’s toy with enough magic to keep it flying for the next eighty years!

“But what do I do with the key to turning you back into a unicorn? Of putting you back the way you’re supposed to be? I bucking pass it off to another because I have…royal duties to attend to.”

After Tia spit out the two words like a curse, Sunset backed away.

Then, Luna stepped up to her older sister. “Sister-”

“And don’t you start on me about how I should remain here Luna!” Celestia said with a frown before the other goddess could even begin. “You were right in the Crystal Empire. You have run Equestria before all on your own, even if it was just in my name. The fact that I gave the responsibility to Twilight when I needed to deal with a friendship problem makes me ashamed to call myself your sister.” She took in a deep breath, and let out a sigh before continuing on in a gentler tone. “I love you Luna. More importantly, I trust you. I know you will…clean up the mess I have made of things when it comes to the nobility.”

Luna stood silent at Tia’s words for a few seconds, and then… “Yes well…as gladdened as I am at your faith in me Celly, just hoofing over everything like this…”

When Luna didn’t continue, that actually managed to make Celestia pause for a moment. “Luna, you mean you don’t think you can-”

“Whoa Sister!” Luna said as she raised her hoof to stop Celestia before she could really start. “I did not say I could not carry the burden of the crown. I just…think that we could provide a more stable transition than you simply storming out. I could use some preparation time, a bit of insight into the minds of the court…some bucking advice on how not to impale half these idiots for the sake of the heavens!”

Celestia’s face slowly became filled with doubt for a moment before she forced it away with a shake of her head. “If you need advice, I would be glad to give all the years of my expertise with the current generation Luna,” she assured the smaller alicorn. “But…no, I can’t do this anymore when Sunset needs me. Even after we restore her, I’ll still have to help her on the path to ascension. There’s no bucking way I’m going to neglect her again because of some stupid Princess duties Luna.”

I didn’t know whether to be disappointed on how she was choosing a single pony over a country, or impressed Celestia was finally going with those she really cared about rather than the faceless masses. It was the old quality VS quantity argument. Sure, one life weighed against many might not have seemed like much, but the quality of that life was a definite, while the nameless masses were an unknown. And considering one of those masses was Blueblood…

One of Luna’s eyebrows raised, and she shook her head. “Celly, please. Don’t try and hide your own anger at the situation with your altruism. We all know you are a wonderful pony, but we all have our limits. I do not blame you for…exploding as you did. I’ve seen your dreams and knew this was coming for some time. If you need a rest, then by all means take one.

“It’s just…this is all rather sudden,” she went on. “I love the weekly swarays that Ms Pie throws us. They are a wonderful distraction. But then you let your fancy for the changeling slip out before introducing a completely new type of marriage. And now you want to run off with these ponies to…stable with them? Celly, are you running away from your guilt? Or are you also trying to find something that has been denied you for so long like when you ran through that mirror for your long lost love not too long ago?”

After the two alicorns locked gazes, with Luna’s loving concern meeting Tia’s indignation, Celestia looked away after a moment. “Fine! Sunset, you, and my beloved ones aren’t the only reason I’m doing this. But between searching for a cure to Sunset’s condition as well as comforting Omnifarious with his latest gender crisis or dealing with ponies like Blueblood, I’m picking my family! My real family!” she admitted before she glanced over to Twilight for a moment. “And after your showing as a princess a few weeks ago Twilight, I can see that I haven’t covered nearly enough about government during your education. We can take some time to rectify that as well.”

The little alicorn actually frowned just a bit at that semi-insult to her education. “Well pardon me Prin-Celestia, but I thought I would be your next Master of Magic like Starswirl was! Lessons on how to run the country seemed pretty redundant when you had an extra alicorn like Cadence around, and then there was how Luna came back.”

Celestia seemed to completely ignore the rebuttal, and looked over to me. “And you could use some training as well, Princess Omnifarious.”

The mental images that came to mind at that… I didn’t know what was worse, the ideas I got that involved dresses…or riding crops and halters. The later of which only came to mind thanks to an encounter I had with Rarity’s storage room for her more…risqué clientele.

Princess Luna looked over to the pegasus hovering in one of the room’s top corners with a frown. “And you Dame Dash? Any thoughts on the matter?”

Put on the spot, Rainbow looked more like a deer caught in the headlights than a pony. She took a moment to move her eyes across everyone else in the room, and reached up to scratch the back of her head. “Uh…yeah, I’m not really a princess, or a future candidate for one so…really don’t think I should be weighing in on this one.”

“Rainbow,” Celestia spoke up as she looked up to the pegasus with a hurt expression. “I don’t care if you’re a princess or not. Your opinion matters nonetheless. Speak your mind.”

With her avenue of escape cut off, Rainbow gulped and slowly started lowering herself to the ground. “Uh yeah well…I say…buck’em.”

Luna frowned. “Pardon?”

A nervous laugh escaped from Rainbow’s mouth. “Well, it’s one thing to be something for Equestria that you like, but…if it’s something you hate then…I say buck it. Luna can finally be big princess in the kingdom, and you can…get some rest,” she said after a few pauses that, knowing Rainbow, were needed to make sure her brain was moving at the same speed of her mouth to avoid saying something stupid. “You’ve helped Equestria for so long, got us through so many tough times...maybe it’s time somepony helped you Princess.

“So if you want to come crash at our place to get away from the plotholes? I say go for it.”

With one of us actually agreeing with Celestia’s decision to turn tail and run from her responsibilities, the goddess visibly relaxed. “Thank you for your honesty Rainbow Dash,” she said before looking over to Luna. “And perhaps you are right sister. Maybe I am rushing to these mares and our stallion to compensate for what has become an unbearable labor, but…that does not make me any less sure of my decision, or its correctness.

“But… we do need to prepare for a more stable transition than me simply walking out,” Celestia admitted as she hung her head. “So, let’s converse on what we need to tell our little ponies as to make this transition go as smoothly as possible.”

The first thing Luna and Tia did was call in a pair of the gathered ponies to get the whole story about what had happened in their absence. Celestia’s scheduling aide, Kibitz, and one of her many secretaries, Raven, informed us that Blueblood had shown up with this entourage and several royal guards this morning. Then he made some big announcement that he had decided that the sisters were no longer allowed to rule Canterlot, and all the ponies needed to swear fealty to him. After all the laughter and indignation on the parts of the palace staff subsided, Blueblood started demanding arrests at the hands of his royal guards.

Of course since the vast majority of the palace guard were still loyal to Celestia, violence nearly erupted. That is until Kibitz had all the ponies that were going to toss Blueblood into the dungeon bow out for the day and go to their homes, palace apartments, or wherever they lived rather than make things descend into violence.

Celestia verbally patted the old pony on the head while Luna grumbled about him being too soft, and said that Blueblood and his conspirators should have been put in stocks to greet them at the gate. But the disagreement on what to do what short-lived, and then we all got down to the important stuff.

By the time Luna and Celestia had worked out how they were going to pull everything off behind our protective shield with some input from the rest of us, I was pretty certain that the press conference Luna had called for wasn’t all that necessary. Being Rarity’s best friend, I knew that gossip traveled faster than Rainbow Dash when it came to ponies of the upper class.

After some talk, Rainbow agreed to stay in Celestia’s quarters and pack the few things that were left with help from Sunset. I didn’t blame the human for not wanting to go outside with what was waiting for her. Walking around Ponyville was one thing, Canterlot was another.

As for what had Sunset wanting to become a temporary shut-in, the crowd outside the room we had been hiding in tripled in just the time it took the sisters to work out what they were going to do and order their servants to make the preparations. Judging by all the palace staff that we passed in the hallway, plus all the ponies that were poking their heads out around corners as we passed, it was a pretty good bet word of Celestia’s blowup had made it outside the palace walls, and probably halfway to Ponyville.

And of course, there were all the mutterings that came with our passing. Most of it was just the ponies asking about what was happening, but several had some…theories. A few of which had me looking around for a tin-foil hat cutie mark.

“What’s going on?”

“Did Princess Celestia really banish Prince Blueblood to Tartarus?”

“We’re dooooooomed!”

“I heard she’s abdicating the throne to him!”

“The royal guard revolted!”

“It turned out that the Princess Celestia that’s been ruling Canterlot for the past two weeks was really an alien, and Prince Blueblood managed to expose her!”

“Princess Celestia put Blueblood in the dungeon for sitting in her chair!”

“Princess Celestia got pregnant with Prince Blueblood’s love-child!”

By the time we actually got to the assembly, I was wondering how the hell ponies managed to get through the various monster problems Equestria faced from time to time without becoming a mass of panic…stricken… Oh right, they don’t, I realized.

At least not on average. Some of them did join the EUP. Sure, they got their butts kicked more often than not, but…they at least ran towards the danger rather than away from it in every direction.

Lacking television, I had also spent most of my time going through the halls of the palace kind of wondered just that the hell a press conference would have involved. When I saw the dozens of ponies wearing something that the cliché reporter would with a classic fedora and another group with their cameras hanging around their necks, I felt like facehoofing.

Newspapers…right, I thought to myself while kicking myself for my monetary lack of common sense.

Not that I ever bothered reading the stupid things myself. The Equestrian distribution of information was about equal of that of…well, there really wasn’t an Earth historical equivalent to that of how information got from place to place in Equestria. While pegasi were an option for mostly-speedy deliveries, they didn’t have any instant communication ability outside that of the…changelings… Note to self, create nationwide newspaper for important national events.

Each little town had their own little rag like the Ponyville Gazette, while bigger cities had more choices, everything was still pretty local. For the important stuff like my unintentional invention of herding, Tia sent out announcements by wing and train. However, each of the big city newspapers had a reporter or two in Canterlot in case Celestia just wasn’t feeling up to making a grand change to the social order, but still needed to get the word out about something important.

Not that what she was about to announce wasn’t going to shake Equestria to its core…

All four of…us…princesses (Oh God, I was really going to have to start thinking of myself like that, wasn’t I?) walked up onto an impromptu stage while all of Equestria’s regurgitating reporters, the guys that just got handed news stories to repeat rather than actually hunt for them, waited for us. With me and Twilight just being eye candy, we flanked the two big princesses that would be handling everything and took a moment to smile and wave.

“My little ponies,” Celestia announced in an amplified voice that wasn’t quite as eardrum rupturing as the RCV, but still pretty loud. “I am sure that word has reached several of you by now that I have made a rather loud announcement while inside the throne room.”

As she paused for a little breath, ponies actually started talking.

“You mean it’s true?”

“But who will raise the sun?”

“YOU REALLY ARE PREGNANT WITH BLUBLOOD’S BABY?”

The last one actually made Celestia lose her composure, and give the mare who shouted the question an angry glare. “Oh for crying out loud,” she mumbled before glancing back at Twilight as if to say ‘do you see that I have to fucking deal with?’ and scowling at the reporter. “Even if I HAD laid with that stallion, a unicorn making a foal with me is impossible!”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t these idiots know alicorns can’t get pregnant?”

“Hm?” Luna spoke up before looking back to me. “Who told you that?”

I looked over to Luna, kind of thrown off a bit by the question. “Uh…Cadence. When I was with her in the Crystal Empire.”

After another second of watching her scowl in confusion, Luna nodded in understanding. “Ah yes, I would suppose that is true from an ascended alicorn’s point of view. She is right, in a way. The magical change to a mare’s body from their previous type of pony to that of an alicorn removes their ability to enter heat. It’s an unfortunate side effect that neither Celly or myself, not to mention a few of our students were ever able to correct.”

“Are you two quite finished?”

The irate words from my solar-powered pony princess made me flinch and Luna look back to her sister with a nervous blush. “Apologies.”

Celestia cleared her throat, and went back to addressing the crowd. “Please hold all questions until I have finished my announcement my little ponies,” the princess told them with more of that irritation Scent on her. “Obviously there have been many rumors about what transpired and a few as to the cause of it what happened, so I will start at the beginning.

“Several days ago, Prince Blueblood came into court and demanded several actions be taken on his behalf because of a wounded pride,” Celestia told everyone while I caught a whiff of anger coming from her. Most likely from her reliving the incident in her mind. “In doing so, he not only insulted two creatures that are very dear to me, but demanded I take reprehensible actions against them.

“I will not throw insults, but many of you who have reported or even interviewed Prince Blood know what kind of a pony he can be. Being born in the lap of luxury and developing such a sense of entitlement as he had was becoming more and more of a burden to Equestria. The only reason that I had not taken action to try and sort him out sooner was out of a…misplaced debt to his progenitor. So, I decided to take action to curb his nature and assigned him a task with an ultimatum. Either he would learn to help Equestria, or be removed from his position of authority.

“Instead of doing as instructed Blueblood dug up an archaic law made near Equestria’s founding that was meant to be a check against my sister and I, should we prove incapable of leading the young nation. After proving that we were, steps were taken to render this law unusable. However, Blueblood failed to realize this, and attempted a coup de at to try and take control of Canterlot for himself. The fact that he took these actions and threatened violence to anypony who did not follow his commands left my sister no choice but to have our nephew and his conspirators confined to the palace dungeons.

“It was also during this time that I made a…personal revelation,” Celestia went on, much more hesitantly than before. “When my sister was brought back to me, I told her that we were meant to rule together. The need for this has never been made more clear to me than today. A single ruler, no matter how old or wise, has faults. And after a thousand years, my faults have taken their toll on Equestria. As such, I am…”

Celestia stopped for a moment and looked at the three of us with an annoyed glare. “…taking some time to attend to matters that require my personal attention,” she said, avoiding the Q-word like it was dirty.

After an hour of talking to the goddess and helping her shove one thousand of years of knickknacks into a box that apparently had no bottom, we had managed to talk Tia into phrasing the announcement of her resignation very carefully. This was mostly thanks to Sunset, who had spent a good time in high school learning just what to say to manipulate people.

When Celestia turned back to face her ponies, I saw her mask go back on a second before she met their faces. “As such, Princess Luna will have full control of Equestria during my absence. And through her leadership, Equestria will correct the mistakes of the past, and be led into a brighter future for all our little ponies!”

A few seconds passed, and as the ponies gathered around the platform finally realized that Tia was done speaking, they began to look at each other nervously. However, one unicorn managed to find enough courage to raise his hoof. “Uh, Princess Celestia…can we ask questions now?”

The goddess cleared her throat. “During this time, I have officially put aside my title as a princess. So it is simply Celestia,” she corrected the pony. “And yes, you may ask questions.”

Upon hearing Tia had abandoned her duties, even without saying the A-word, the crowd of ponies broke out into worried muttering. Scents of fear reached my psychic nostrils, and I glanced over to Twilight with my own worried expression.

We had guessed that Tia announcing what was pretty much going to be her retirement would cause a panic. But talking about it and actually seeing the beginnings of it were another. My sensibilities hated causing any sort of discomfort among the non-dick ponies, and I knew I was going to need a major dose of Tia’s love to help me deal with my conscience afterwards. The kind of dose to knock me on my ass.

“What about the sun? Who will raise the sun?” a female unicorn with a brown coat asked.

I could Smell Tia’s annoyance build, even as she kept her face calm. “When Luna and I were given stewardship of Equestria by Starswirl and the first generation of leaders, we did not give rise to the sun and moon, but only acted as guardians of all the ponies and a symbol of unity. Raising the sun was never part of my duties as a princess, and I will continue to do so even without a crown upon my head.”

Some of the ponies calmed down at hearing Celestia’s words. And the numbers increased as she continued speaking. “Nor is a crown required for me to rush to Equestria’s defense should the need arise,” she told them with a voice that became more and more gentle the longer she talked. “So I will protect you. I will light the sky for you. But I will no longer rule over you. It is time that duty be passed to another.”

“B-But where will you be Princess?”

Tia’s wings twitched. However, no signs of her irritation showed on her face. Whether the annoyance was from the use of her title, or the obvious imaging of hundreds of ponies camped out on her front lawn to annoy the hell out of her, I wasn’t sure. “I shall be residing within Everfree Castle along with Princess Twilight Sparkle and Princess Omnifarious,” she announced. “Part of what I hope to accomplish during my absence from Canterlot is to prepare them to rule a larger portion of Equestria than they currently control. Princess Cadence went through a similar education as the one I am planning for them, however she was able to balance it with a regular one since she became an alicorn before adulthood.”

There were more mutterings of questions from the crowd, but Tia raised a hoof. “Unfortunately my little ponies, there is still much to do before my departure. So I leave you all in my sister’s capable hooves,” Celestia told the reporters before she motioned for the three of us to beat a hasty, yet dignified, retreat.

I hate to admit it, but…teleporting under Tia’s power always had me a bit jealous. My middle finger to the space-time continuum usually left my passengers wanting to puke. But when I was swept up in Celestia’s warm and gentle magic, I might as well have been flying first class for all the comfort it afforded the three of us.

We popped back into the main room of Celestia’s apartment to find Rainbow and Sunset having a conversation. Dash was in the air looking at her wings, and Sunset was scribbling something down in her little science journal.

“-dunno how to describe it really,” Rainbow said. “I mean, it’s just flying. I never really thought about it except when it comes to doing tricks.”

Sunset let out a groan and shut her book before sticking the pencil she was using into the spine. “Thank you ever so much for your expert breakdown of pegasus magic,” she monotoned before looking over to us. “Hey Pri-er, Mom. Um…there’s a lot of ponies waiting for you outside.”

“Thank you Sunset,” the goddess said with a nod. When the girl got up to move for Tia’s bedroom, Celestia took a step after her. “Oh you don’t have to go. What I have to tell my aides will hardly be a state secret. Not that I would keep anything like that from you. Once we fix this human condition of yours, it will only be a matter of time before you’ll be needing to attend princess summits.” The hardness of Celestia’s voice made me wonder if she really believed that, or was just trying to convince herself.

Whatever her thoughts on the matter, Sunset wasn’t too agreeable with the idea of her sticking around. “No I’m good. I need to make sure we packed everything anyway.”

Celestia’s face fell at the rejection, and she lowered her head as Sunset made her way out. “Rainbow my dear, would you open the door and show my assistants in?”

“Uh…sure,” she said before doing just that as a dozen unicorns with coats of various colors dressed up in finery made their way into the room. Of course one of them was giving off a smell that just screamed ‘NOT REALLY A PONY’ and I had to force myself not to stare at the black unicorn that didn’t have a cutie mark.

I recognized a few of the ponies, including the two from earlier that Celestia had used to get a feel for the atmosphere around the palace. The fact they were all unicorns was something I found a little disturbing. But as I was pretty sure Celestia wasn’t a racist bitch, I just chalked it up to the law of averages of how many unicorns lived in Canterlot, or maybe she had some soft of internship program going on with her unicorns-only school.

A school that was unicorns only because it was a magic academy mind you, not because of some unicorn master race thing going on.

…Even if they did kind of run the country…

“Greetings everypony, by now I take it that you have received word that I will be taking a leave of absence for the foreseeable future,” Celestia began, much the same way she had started her speech.

She even paused to wait for the first wave of panic to get over with.

“Oh no!” Celestia’s aide involving foreign matters said as she put her hooves to her cheeks.

“Oh no!” the goddess’s financial aide shouted while he backed away.

“Oh no!” Tia’s aide that changeling intelligence said dealt with the school system cried.

My obligatory eye roll was cut off when the wall suddenly exploded to admit a large red pony I actually mistook to be Big Macintosh for a moment before he stood up on his hind legs to shout, “OH YEAH!”

I…untensed from what had become my pony combat stance and folded my wings back down to…blink at the sight. Then I looked up to Celestia and pointed towards the newcomer. “What the hay is that?”

The goddess returned my look of confusion with a giggle. “Oh, that’s my cool aide,” she explained before I groaned and raised a hoof to cover my face. “I’ve tasked him with defusing tense situations during any of these meetings.” A second later, Tia looked over to the wall and lit up her horn. “Now, give me a moment while I fix this.”

While the fucking goddess of the sun went to do the work of a simple house repair pony, I just looked up at whatever invisible force caused Equestria to keep shitting out these things. I mean sure, living in a magical land of ponies that could break out into song on command and pretty much ran on references had helped me save the Crystal Empire when I figured out how to use it for my advantage but…there were just some days that I just wanted to find Fausticorn and knock her upside the head.

On the other hand…the sudden appearance of the big red pony did shock the others out of their little panic attack so… No, I wasn’t going to admit that he had an actual purpose in life. Not. At. All.

Once Celestia was finished, she turned back to her aides. “Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way. I want to inform the lot of you about my plans,” Tia said before her expression turned deadly serious. “What I am about to say will not leave this room under any circumstances unless Luna commands you otherwise, understood?”

Some of the ponies in the room got a little nervous again and showed it with a bit of brow sweat and gulps, but none of the argued with their goddess before Celestia started speaking again. “While I have informed the press that I am leaving the duties of High Princess to my sister for awhile, what I avoided mentioning was that I doubt that I will retake the throne of Equestria within your lifetimes.”

A deep silence settled over the room at Celestia’s words, and all the ponies looked like they were about to go into a state of shock. “As such, you will treat my sister with the respect and level of devotion you have shown to me. If there is some kind of problem, and if, only if Luna is unable to handle it, will you contact me through Number Four’s telepathic link to Princess Omnifarious. There will be no letters, mystical sending, or any kind of communication between us that leaves a trace. Is that clear?”

When the ponies finally managed a reply in the affirmative, Tia looked over to the aide that wasn’t like the others. “And my little changeling, I want daily reports of my sister’s activities delivered to Omnifarious. You are to become her main advisor, and not to leave her side for more than the few seconds it takes to send the information into your mental network.”

#4 looked over to me, and I just shot him a glare. “Don’t ask me for confirmation. I told you when Celestia decided to keep you around that as far as you were concerned, her orders were my orders. And now that goes for Luna too.”

Celestia looked over her minions for another second, and then turned her head back to the non-peons in the room. “So Twilight, shall we finish getting ready to go back to Ponyville? We still need to visit my storage to get the rest of my things that I want to set up in the old castle and…well, I don’t suppose it will take too much trouble to craft a cloud bed for my first few nights before we can make something a bit more stable. Spike is probably hoping you’ll hurry back to Ponyville too.”

A tiny jolt seemed to run through Twilight’s body at the announcement. She hit the ground with her ass, and reached up to scratch the back of her head. “Um, about that…Celestia,” the little goddess said, the pause she needed to leave out her idol’s title obvious. “I was planning to have dinner with my parents as soon as they got back. I told them in the Crystal Empire I would give them some time to get to know my…uh…Rainbow.”

Twilight glanced over to Celestia’s servants.

Tia did the same, and then looked back to her purple girlfriend a moment before addressing her aides. “We are done here. From this moment on, Luna’s orders are what will concern you all. Go now, and serve her as faithfully as you have me.”

Kibitz, the old unicorn with a rather large gray mustache and fancy coat that did nothing to hide his pocket watch cutie mark stepped forward. “As you command milady,” he said before sweeping into a bow. “It was the greatest honor of my life to be allowed to assist you, Princess Celestia.”

We waited for everyone to give their princess one last bow and call her the P-word, which she didn’t correct them on before nodding her head to send the ponies on their way. Then, when the regal scene was finished and Tia closed the door with her magic, she spun around with a grin that gave me shivers. “So Twilight, we’re going to meet your parents?”

The question actually looked like it forced Twilight to recline even further on her butt. “Um…my…parents?”

Tia shrugged. “Well, with you taking Rainbow to meet them, and Omnifarious as well?” she asked before glancing over to me. When I just moved my head in the affirmative, Tia went back to steamrolling her way into our date. “I just assumed you didn’t want to mention our relationship in front of the servants and were going to include me in tonight’s introduction to your family.”

“I-Introduce…you?” the pretty purple pony princess squaked.

To which Tia gasped in what was obviously an overly-dramatic manner to anyone with two braincells to rub together. “Oh, I see,” she said before looking away from Twilight. “The only alicorn who is not a princess. To be associated with me must be the height of embarrassment for you now.”

Tia’s half-assed acting actually shook Twilight out of her shock. “What? NO!” the little alicorn shouted before she rushed over to Celestia and got on her back legs to put her front ones halfway around the bigger goddess and look at her eye. “I would never be embarrassed by you! You’re the most amazing pony ever! I love you!”

Even Celestia was a little taken back by the fierce declaration, and that left her open for Twilight’s attack, Purple lips met white, and the smaller goddess let out a moan as I saw the slight motion of Celestia’s lips that allowed Twilight’s tongue inside her mouth.

As the two had their lovers wrestling match, Celestia glanced over to me.

I glared back at her to sent a non-verbal message through the air. ‘See what you did? Now she’s worried! Don’t make my perfectly pretty purple pony princess all panicky’. Honesty! Tia just took things way too far sometimes.

Celestia grabbed Twilight in her big pony-arms, and I decided to find something else to do before Tia’s sitting room became the scene from a pony porn video. I mean sure, with it being Twilight and Celestia, I knew I was more than welcome to join in, but…the three of us doing it without Rainbow Dash around kind of felt like cheating.

Two of four ponies doing the private mambo? That was just some personal us time a relationship like ours was probably going to have from time to time. But three out of four ponies banging each other? That was just leaving the fourth member of our little herd high and dry. No way in hell I was going to do that to Dash, or Tia, or Twilight when the option presented itself.

And…we probably needed to make that a rule to make sure no one’s feeling were hurt in the future. Foursome’s were fine and twosomes were good for some super intimacy, but the number three was forbidden in a four pony relationship.

So, not wanting to get involved in the coming clop, I headed to the one place I knew the two randy alicorns weren’t about to get down and dirty at: Celestia’s bedroom.

The four of us quadrupeds and the biped spent the day in Canterlot doing various things together. Needing to get a better explanation of the whole flight thing worked beyond Rainbow’s explanation of ‘I dunno, I just flap my wings’ Sunset spent most of the day talking science with Twilight and doodling in her little book while Rainbow gave her the expertise of a real flyer on how she dealt with various aerial conditions; which were apparently a big problem so near the Everfree.

Honestly, I think Sunset was jumping the gun with all the alicorn-flight preparation stuff, but…I sure as hell wasn’t going to try and kill her buzz.

Tia and me ended up going to her storage closet for the rest of her stuff and… Well, Celestia was using a 6x8ft crate that she had magicked to fit every book, dress, knickknack and piece of furniture that would go through the opening inside the damn thing. Her entire room, shoved into a medium wooden box. So, you can imagine what a creature that was thousands of years old could do using the same spell on a walk-in closet.

And...Look, I wouldn’t really call her a hoarder since…you know, the amount of junk healthy people collect is relative to the amount of memories they’ve collected over their lives. Considering Celestia was…too old for me to ask her age thanks to basic sensibilities, I had to consider her infinite hallway of pictures, statues, what looked like homemade gifts, and jewelry healthy.

…At least I hoped it was healthy.

I mean, people would have a personal treasure trove of useless junk that made the little mermaid’s underwater vault of crap look like a little display cabinet in sheer volume if they had been around for over 1,000 years too, right?

On the upside, I did get a little look into Celestia’s pony past. As I looked around for some old painting she told me about that featured her and Luna when they were happy, I did see a few things that were worth noticing. Like a painting of a slender pony with a bright red coat, a horn, and some wings. You know, an alicorn.

An alicorn that I hadn’t seen before.

As in not Luna, Tia, Twilight, or Cadence.

She looked…kind of familiar, but I knew for damn sure I had never actually met the mare. “Uh Tia…who’s that?” I asked while pointing a hoof at the picture when the goddess walked by after returning to her closet from a dropoff.

“Oh, one of my former students,” she said before letting out a sigh. “Poor Loving Heart. A stallion named Iron Hoof snuck a love potion into her tea one day and…well…let’s just say it didn’t end well for them.”

I took a few more seconds to look at the picture with Tia behind me. Of course, the mention of mind-altering drugs served as a reminder of some of my own darker fantasies involving my friends, some slave collars, and a whole lot of green eyes. After living with them for so long I didn’t really dread being tempted into making the whole lot of them a bunch of green-eyed sex slaves. Considering that I had avoided mind-raping Twilight when I was terrified of her running off with Tia, I felt pretty sure of my self-control.

But…it’s not like the memories of those thoughts had disappeared either.

Although I was starting to feel a little shame for even considering the possibility of that choice path’s existence in the first place.

To try and take my mind off the whole thing, I looked to a new picture…that had another female alicorn in it. This one had a light blue coloring to her coat with a blonde mane and a cutie mark of a…burning rainbow?

“Ah yes, Star Butterfly…I’d rather not talk about her,” Celestia told me in a tone that screamed ‘NOT ONE WORD’ to me.

It took me a good five minutes of following Tia around and helping her collect her junk before I could get another word out. Of course, my mind was still on the thing that every brony would have been thinking about by that point. “So uh…Twilight and Cadence…they aren’t the only ponies you’ve turned into alicorns over the years?”

Celestia shook her head. “Not by a long shot. Luna and I created the spell several millennia go,” she replied before becoming a little confused. “I had thought that would have been obvious to you by now. I hid the fact it was possible for me to ascend ponies if they have the potential but…all the evidence there for anypony who looks hard enough. Twilight told me you had an interest in history and you never asked me about it, so I had thought it was a discovery you had already made.”

I winced as the obvious follow-up question to the existence of several alicorns entered my mind. That question being: Just where the fuck was this army of princesses now?

Which of course was instantly answered by my own brilliant intellect. Considering Luna had a hand in making some of them into princesses, some of the alicorns depicted in Celestia’s closet had to have become princesses one thousand years ago. And with them not being around anymore…they were obviously dead.

While I could buy a few alicorns falling prey to the forces of evil…all of them getting bumped off by the bad guys except for Tia and Lulu just…didn’t add up. Sure, the sisters were more powerful than the average alicorn, but not so much that they were invincible.

Which meant…all those mortal mares that had gotten a horn, wings and stamina were just that: Mortal. Even if a pony went through alicornication, old age would eventually catch up to them, and lay them low. One day, Twilight was going to die. Dash was too, even if I did manage to talk Tia into sticking a horn on her head. Not to mention the rest of the girls.

And being from a genetically engineered race that cheated the laws of science with magic, I would linger for as long as there was food for me to eat.

GAH! Stupid brain, why the fuck do you have to bring that up again? I demanded of my forward-thinking mind. Sure it was nice for planning, but when I saw a catastrophe on the horizon, it was all I could think about. No matter how ridiculous it was. Like how I thought Tia was just going to snatch Twilight up and run off with her.

But my newest fear wasn’t some impossibly ridiculous thing that had no chance of happening whatsoever! My friends were mortal. They. Were. Going. To. Die!

And I would be there to watch.

Sure, it was many, many years down the road…unless a monster ended up getting lucky or something, but it was still going to happen! And if Tia’s attitude towards Scootaloo was any indication, there wasn’t a single fucking thing she could do about it.

…

Or was there?

“So um, Celestia?” I began rather pathetically. “Um, I’m looking at all these princesses, and I can’t help but wonder…is Twilight going to be around as long as you…and me?”

The alicorn didn’t blink at the question, or the reminder of my little problem. After Celestia had ended up in my head and got the changelings on the side of Equestria, a lot of hours during our earlier days were spent with me explaining things to her after the movie was over. When she got tired of talking about human stuff, and I got as much Equestrian info as she would give me for the night, Celestia picked my brain about changelings.

It only took a handful of nights to go through all the information I had on them. The stuff she was interested in anyway.

“What brought this on?” she asked me gently. There was no question in my mind that the goddess was really asking.

I hung my head and sighed. “I’d thought you’d figured me out by now. Always gotta find something to worry about.” I think it went hand and hand with my morbid curiosity.

A tiny smirk made its way onto Celestia’s face. “You do seem to be high maintenance,” she told me before her eyes became serious again and the little smile faded. “And no, when I turned Twilight into an alicorn, she might have gained a couple extra decades from her earth pony addition to her body, but it did not stop her aging completely.”

Then the big question. I tried to push it out of my head and let Celestia continue her work but…there was no sense in stopping things now. “Is there a way to…make them…like us.”

“Twilight and Rain-”

“All of them!” I said with as much force as I could manage before Celestia could finish. It was a bit harsher than my normal tone, but not nearly the commanding one that I was going for. And…my nerve got used up at that. The rest of it just came out as pleading. “The six of them. They’ve done so much for Equestria, and-and besides, they’re the only ponies who can use the Elements of Harmony! You…you can’t just let them die! What’ll happen if they do? And-and-”

A gentle hoof on my shoulder made me stop talking and fight to get in some normal breaths.

Celestia reached down with a wing and gave me a quick hug. “Calm yourself my love.”

The all encompassing presence of the alicorn’s wing let me put a little bit of sense back into my thoughts. From there, I managed to slow my breathing, taking in air through my nose and pushing it out my mouth. After a trio of in and out breaths, I looked back up to the pony goddess. “Thanks.”

“Somepony’s been picking up Twilight’s bad habits,” Celestia said with a small smile.

I could practically feel my cheeks turn red. “Uh no…this is…just me,” I admitted. “I mean, I’m not as bad as Twilight but…well, I do have my moments.”

Celestia’s lips pressed against my forehead, and that blush I might have had may have gotten a little worse. “Well then let me tell you what I would say if you were her,” she told me. “Stop worrying about something that’s so far away we quite literally have decades to find the perfect solution to it.”

With my brain working at mostly full power again, I managed to catch something in Tia’s little assurance and frowned. “Find the perfect-wait!” I mumbled before looking up to her. “You mean…you’ve already thought about this?”

A single ‘heh’ got past Celestia’s lips and she smiled for a few seconds. “Even before you convinced me to open up to them, I was considering extending their life spans,” she told me evenly. “As much as it sickens me to think of things in this manner, they wielded the most powerful defense we had. I had lost my connection to them, and the Elements remade themselves in the image of her friends’ cutie marks. Nopony else would ever be able to use them.”

I frowned. “What’s with all the past tense?”

Celestia sighed. “With the Elements, I had a solid reason to force them to stay. And now…” she shook her head. “You said you were of a mortal race before coming here, and look at what the prospect of being around forever is doing to you. Do you want me to do the same to them?”

The question made me frown in thought. Considering who I was talking to, I couldn’t help but deconstruct my options.

I could have gone after the way she was projecting again. I knew Celestia had been lonely during Luna’s absence, facing God only knew what, seeing ponies she had probably watch grow up in one way or another fade and die without someone to share her pain with. Talking her into expanding that little circle of confidants would probably be doable no matter how many years she had on me.

Then there was the reward route. I’ll admit, I would need to do some definite selling to go at it from that angle at the moment. She was viewing her immortality as an eternal curse rather than a blessing.

Which...it kind of was without someone to share it with.

And then there was the- “Would you please stop doing that?”

I looked up at Celestia in confusion. “Doing what?”

“You get this look on your face whenever you're deep in thought. I know whatever it is your thinking about, it’s this whole immortality thing. So I’m telling you to stop.” Once again, Celestia reached out with a wing and placed it on my back again. “Stop thinking about it. Stop worrying about it. Just...stop. If the problem needs to be dealt with, then we will deal with it when we need to. Putting yourself into a panic over you do not need to worry about will only cause you pain. So please my love, stop worrying yourself over it. For me?”

I walked up to the goddess and leaned into her chest in the universal body language of getting emotional support from another. What with her being twice as big as me, it was the best I could do. Stupid giant pony and her freakish height. How come the most reliable of my girlfriends had to be the hardest to physically lean on?

I wanted to keep going, to tell her more…

But…I was so tired of worrying about everything.

I worried about Twilight finding out I was a changeling when I first showed up, what would happen between the two of us when I became a girl, pretty much everything about Rainbow Dash, and Celestia’s relationship with Twilight. And just because I was good at finding stuff to worry about didn’t mean I liked it.

Using a rather cliché relaxation technique, I took in a deep breath while imagining it revitalizing my body, and then let out a long breath that I imagined contained all my worries. Then, I did my best to focus on the moment

I looked up at my giant girlfriend and breathed in the physical scent of her chest. She still had the smell of Twilight’s shampoo on her coat that I let fill my senses as I buried my face into her body below the neck. I concentrated on how her feathers felt on my back, the feeling of her fetlock moving around on my neck, the cool golden slipper of a horseshoe that was touching my coat.

I reminded myself that Celestia was the most perfect pony princess in the world, and if I let her handle things, everything would be just fine.

She kissed me on the head, above my horn this time. “Feeling better?”

“A little,” I replied softly. My memory was quick to remind me of what happened to the last time I had just tried to push my problems to the back of my mind. I told my logic to tell my memory that letting Tia deal with the problem was different than not dealing with it at all.

Celestia stepped away, withdrawing her lovely scent, gentle touch, and wonderful presence. “Good. Because now that we have that little problem solved, there’s a much more serious matter to take care of.”

All of my tension quickly returned at Celestia’s words. “What’s that?”

“Ugh, I can’t believe I’m wearing this thing two nights in a row.”

I looked over to Rainbow Dash as the girl clip clopped in place on the street while she worked to adjust the fancy vest she had worn to the public presentation of my coronation. With the little green at on her head to boot, I had to fight not to comment on her adorableness.

“Technically Rainbow, Fae’s coronation was during the day. We were naked by the time Luna raised the moon, so this is the first night you’ve actually worn that outfit since Rarity made it,” Twilight corrected her while she adjusted her own outfit. Like Rainbow, Twilight had reused the dress from her coronation.

My tail rebelled against being pushed up against my butt by my own outfit, and I swished it around a little, which made the restrained feeling that much worse. Like the rest of the girls, I was in way too many clothes for a pony. Dress clothes. As in the actual dress I had worn just yesterday and told myself I would never wear again.

Damn my love for purple ponies, I thought to myself before glancing over to Twilight. One little word from her, and I was back in a full gown with sequins.

Yeah, Twilight knew it made me uncomfortable as hell in more way than one. But since this was another introduction, she said it was going to be super formal and wanted everyone to look their best. I swore to myself when this whole thing was done, I was going to commission Rarity to crank out a whole wardrobe of the tomboy kind of stuff that Rainbow Dash was sporting for the next time Twilight wanted me to dress up.

I looked to my left where the two girls were standing. “Wait, Twilight didn’t have a coronation party?”

Twilight flinched a little before she froze in place. A light blush covered her cheeks. Beside her, Rainbow Dash let out a laugh. “Oh no, we had a party, it’s just that everypony had to get naked for it,” she said with a little chuckle.

To make my confusion completely obvious, I added some vocalization to my lost facial expression. “Huh?”

Twilight cleared her throat. “Yes well...after I became a princess, we had a little parade. At the very end of it, I leaped into the air to glide on a prepared wind stream that should have taken me around Canterlot before putting me back onto a balcony overlooking everypony,” she said before her blush increased and she looked away from me. “Only uh…I learned too much to side and ended up spiraling out of control. Then I crashed into a tree on the ground. Rainbow had to come and get me out.”

The pegasus put a wing around Twilight’s back and nuzzled her. “Yeah well, saving princesses is part of the whole hero thing.”

I also vaguely remembered hearing the story before from Twilight, and knew she was leaving a part out. The part about her getting tangled in some sort of vast-moving vines that wrapped around her horn and prevented her from using magic before Rainbow showed up to grab and yank her out. From the way Twilight had been blushing when she told me about it, I was pretty sure if anyone had come across her and Rainbow at that moment, the two of them would have died from embarrassment.

Hell, my mind was already conjuring up a picture of the pegasus pulling at the alicorn from behind and not getting anywhere. Sure it sounded innocent enough, but…with my dirty mind, Rainbow’s failed attempts to wrench Twilight free seemed more like she was humping the tied up alicorn.

Actually…considering I was in Equestria…and what happened between Dash and Celestia…my little lewd fantasy was probably a good bet for what really happened.

Rainbow’s injection of brashness got a giggle from Twilight, and she kissed the pegasus on the cheek before remembering about the rest of her party and how I was waiting for the story to finish. “Anyway…after we got back up to Canterlot, neither of our clothes looked good enough for a fancy party, so we just went naked.”

“Which made everypony else get naked too,” Rainbow added. “It was Twilight party so, if the Princess here wasn’t going to obey a dress code, then nopony else could either. Coolest party in Canterlot I’ve been to.”

Before I could point out the only other party in Canterlot I had seen Rainbow go to was the Gala, the door to the modest house in front of us opened with a glow of magic. Twilight’s mom was standing there without a bit of clothing on. “Oh Twilight, welcome home! And Rainbow Dash, it’s good to see you again, I look forward to having a few words with you tonight. Omnifar-reee…us,” she got out before freezing up when her head turned to look at me.

In Velvet’s defense, it wasn’t my presence that was probably making her freeze up. We had met up at the coronation after party and talked in a way that was more than just amicable. It seemed she and Nightlight had gotten over their changeling phobia. Although, the fact they had just met the mare their son was banging on the side when Cadence wasn’t eating her out might have helped mute their fear.

No, what had TV all silent was the giant white pony standing beside me in a dark orange toga-dress…thing she had pulled out of her infinite storage space closet for our date.

“P-Princess Celestia…why are you here? Is something wrong” Velvet asked while looking the goddess up and down, then sweeping her gaze across the rest of us as if to ask what was going on.

The goddess picked the evening edition of the Canterlot Times that had been left of Velvet’s lawn in her magic and unfolded it. “Well there is this, but I doubt that is what you’re asking about.”

I didn’t need to look at the paper. I’d seen the headline hours ago when we passed a newsstand on the street.

Princess Celestia Retires After Failed Coup.

The whole thing just went over the basics of what I had been there for, plus a little extra about what Luna said after we left. Most of which were assurances that she would be available during daylight hours, as well as some politician-ish promises to clean up Equestria, increase the effectiveness of the military, and bring it out of the nanny state status that Celestia had let Equestria turn into with the way she always responded to requests for assistance on too many matters that ponies should have been able to deal with themselves in Luna’s opinion. There were also some vague comments about her plans for the former Prince Blueblood and his cronies that only amounted to how she was going to make an example out of them, as well as a brief mention that Fancy Pants was the pony she was considering to replace Blueblood as the Duke of Canterlot at Celestia’s recommendation.

In the ensuing silence I heard the muffled clip clop of hooves on carpet a few seconds before Nightlight’s voice came from the house. “Twilight dear, what’s going on? You’ve been standing at the door for…Princess Celestia,” she stallion said as he appeared in the doorway to look around.

Twilight cleared her throat to get the attention of both parents. “Um…Mom? Dad? You remember how I said I was going to officially introduce you and dad to my other special somepony as soon as we got back?” she asked before raised a hoof towards the pegasus that had removed her wing from Twilight when the door open. “Well this is Dame Rainbow Dash, the Bearer of Loyalty, my best friend, flight instructor, and my fillyfriend.”

Then she pointed to the giant pony, whom I made sure to step back from just to make absolutely sure there was no confusion in the matter. “And that’s Celestia, former High Princess of Equestria, Alicorn of the Sun, Star of the Morning, Guardian of the Realm, Defender of Harmony, She Who Brightens the World, and…my newest…lover,” my little alicorn finished with the cutest blush on her cheeks before Twilight dropped a hoof to play with the road beneath her.

Nightlight stood in the door with his mouth agape.

Velvet was a bit more composed than her husband. She went, “Bwa?”

I…just kind of stood there, unsure how to come to my princess’s rescue.

Dash looked about the same as me.

Celestia… The goddess looked at the three of us for a moment, and then Twilight’s parents. “Well, it would seem that we’re a bit overdressed for the occasion. Might we come in and dine? I know you must have a great many questions, and I am more than willing to have a discussion about this to put whatever fears or objections that are running through your minds at ease.

“But first, we should probably get inside and make ourselves more comfortable.”

Velvet nodded, and then both the ponies backed their way inside the house.

And then the four of us all went and got naked with Twilight’s parents.