Princess Luna, as the protector of dreams before she was banished, thought that she had seen any sort of vision that any pony could ever think up. Nightmares of monsters mixed together, strange dreams about other ponies, stranger dreams about what a pony would do to other ponies (and for some, it was what they would do to their family), and the most embarrassing and dramatic moments in ponies’ lives had been seen before her eyes.

This was certainly a new idea.

“She looks mostly like my Luna,” Celestia remarked.

“I believe yours had her mane grown out. My Luna here still has her light blue foal mane, somehow,” another Celestia replied.

“It happens when they turn evil. You reform them, they turn into the younger version of themselves. Something about how that portion of them never grew, it was only the darkness that grew within them and into them,” a third Celestia pointed out.

“I still have the pictures of when my Luna was a child. Yours definitely has the same hair as she did,” a fourth Celestia offered her opinion.

In private and dimly lit chambers retired from the rest of the world, Luna found herself sitting on a rug with four Celestias. Each of them had a tea cup that magically refilled itself with… whatever tea they were drinking, and they all sat in a circle as they continued polite conversation.

“Oh, and before she can be confused, let’s introduce Luna to ourselves,” the Celestia next to Luna announced. “Dear sister, I am Celestia to you, but to our circle here, I am Tia.”

“Hello,” the Celestia opposite of Luna raised a hoof to shake. “I am Princess Celestia, but in this circle, you may call me Celly.” This Celestia looked almost identical to Luna’s own sister Tia, except her royal regalia had deep purple gems embedded in them, instead of the pink that Tia’s regalia held.

“Name’s Molly. Nice to meet you in this universe, Luna~” the third Celestia said huskily. Unlike the other Celestia’s in the room, Molly’s mane was pink, as Celestia’s mane was in her youth. She was as tall as the other princesses, however, and took a moment to walk up to Luna and bump barrels. Luna stared wide eyed at Molly’s own, the last sane vestiges in her mind not currently feeling extremely awkward at the intimate contact noting that Molly’s eyes had a slight crazy sheen to them.

“Molly, please do not already start flirting with the other Lunas of ours. It’s bad enough you do with your own…” The fourth Celestia chided. She, very much unlike the other princesses, was not at all clothed in royal regalia, instead wearing a shirt and a brown suit jacket, with purple dress pants cover her back legs. Also very different was the lack of wings or a horn, having to hold her teacup instead of just levitating it like the other Celestias. She turned back to Luna after shoving Molly away from the blushing night princess, “I am Principal Celestia, but you may call me Celest for now. I am not of anything royal where I am from, however,” she giggled.

Luna, quickly glancing thru the roster of ponies sitting in their circle, felt a little feint. “Celestia, how is this possible?” she asked.

“Starswirl,” all the Celestias answered, before looking at each other. Celly coughed, “what we mean to say is, Starswirl had found a way to bridge gaps between dimensions. It was supposed to be his way to find a permanent way to change time and save you, and all our Lunas, from Nightmare Moon’s control. However, his attempts in each of our dimensions made their persons into a single entity, and he traveled between worlds to try and warn both Luna and us, thinking he was only traveling through time. Once he realized the discrepancies between my timeline and his original, he realized he was going through dimensions, and found out later about the merging of his person. Eventually after a time, we all came to know each other and devised a spell to freely travel between each others’ worlds, though always with reasons. Most of us are also at different times compared to other universes as well, we all had our Lunas saved by the wielders of the Elements of Harmony.”

“Except for me, my Luna was just a little rash in her early years and got herself arrested and imprisoned for a couple years. It was horrid trying to get her into the position she has now as vice-principal, but I do say she’s past her “Nightmare Moon” goth rebel phase,” Celest rambled, before glancing at the stares from the other Celestias and shrunk in her posture. “Sorry, I tend to talk a lot when I’m with you all, don’t I?”

“Thou… all?” Luna asked.

“Yes, though there may be 4 here, there are other Celestia’s that we have met and shared tea with. We are just the ones that said we could immediately come to Tia’s summons. Speaking of,” Celly turned to her counterpart, the Celestia that was the true sister of Luna, “Why did you summon us?”

“I believe I’ve found the major difference between your world and mine, Celly,” Tia said. “Take a look for yourself,” she asked, taking out a photo and handing it with her magic to Celly.

“Huh. Is that Spike? All grown up and with… a rainbow fire necklace?”

“Yes, it is. I believe that along with Twilight’s breezie assistant being the difference among us, Spike here is also the adopted brother of Rainbow Dash,” Tia explained.

“Wow. He looks… healthy~” Molly remarked, leering over the photo of Spike at the awards ceremony, next to his mother and father Firefly and Blitz.

Tia swiped the photo away from Molly and floated it over to Celest. “Please do not lust after citizens in my domain, Molly. You can wait for Spike when he gets older and looks like that.”

“Well, I’m no dragon expert or anything,” remarked Celest as she studied the photo, “but it looks like Spike (in his dragon form, anyway) isn’t that much older than the dragon I saw in Celly’s world. Maybe you, uh, won’t have to wait long, Molly?”

“Don’t encourage her, Celest,” Tia chided. Molly stared into the distance, lost in thought as she imagined the drake she knew in her universe suddenly all grown up.

“Okay, that’s unhealthy to think about, especially considering how I practically raised him first when Twilight couldn’t…” muttered Celly, also lost in thought of how an adult Spike could act towards her.

Tia coughed loudly, catching the attention of everypony in the room. “Well, if you are all done with your incessant thinking about adult dragons, and especially you, miss ‘Discord love me’,” Tia glared at Celly, “that will be all for these sum–”

“What dost thou mean, ‘Discord love me’?” Luna asked, horrified that Celly, though not her sister exactly, would have feelings for the dreaded lord of chaos.

“Oh, they tried reforming Discord in their world to various successes, and so it will be our turn soon,” Tia casually explained.

“WHAT?!”

“Calm down, it’s easy!” Molly hushed the terrified lunar princess. “Just find a way he can make friends with the elements of Harmony! Usually Fluttershy tames him, but I’m betting that her way is going to be a little different than what my world’s Fluttershy did.”

“And… how did your Fluttershy tame your, um, Discord?” Celest asked.

“DON’T SAY IT DON’T SAY IT!” both Tia and Celly yelled, waving their hooves as they tried to magically muffle the words from Molly’s mouth. Luckily, they acted in time, and Molly only sulked as her explanation was never heard.

“You two are no fun,” she muttered. Celly and Tia sighed in relief while Luna and Celest looked at each other with confusion over what just happened.

At that glance, Luna again noticed the lack of alicorn features on Celest. “One more question before we retire and try to burn the memory of this meeting permanently from our mind. Why dost thou look like the common Earth Pony and not a member of the alicorns as we are?” she asked the clothed Celestia.

“Oh, um, well, I am the newest member of this circle, quite frankly. After Celly’s Twilight traveled through her mirror to complete a mission and told her about my existence, it wasn’t long before I was included in the Celestial Circle.”

“Fair note, that’s what she calls it, not us,” Molly remarked.

“I am not an… ‘alicorn’, yes. I am a human in my world, we’re like bipedal apes but with less hair. I’m not immortal, either. (“Not yet,” Luna heard Molly mutter under her breath.) I am just a regular principal at Canterlot High in my universe. Although many of the students at my school have counterparts in other universes that I’ve seen, might I add.”

Tia sighed. “I still have to fix relations with my Sunset Shimmer soon, don’t I?”

“Sunset Shimmer?” Luna questioned. There was just too many things she missed while she was gone, and she hated that she had so much catching up to do.

“A story for another time, Luna. At least you’ll get to meet an alternate version of yourself soon, Celest,” Tia noted.

“Another me? Well I hope she’s nice, and not like Molly’s version of me,” Celest said, sipping the last few drops of her tea.

“Hey, I’ll have you know Celine is a very well-mannered human me! She’s just a little excitable, is all,” Molly retorted.

“…Right. Well, now that the business of meeting Luna and learning of Spike’s appearance in this world is done, I’d rather head back home. My Luna is probably playing video games and drinking herself into an inebriated stupor, cursing out random strangers over the internet. On a school night. Again.”

“Agreed. Er, somewhat. I have to get back to my universe and make sure Thorax is fitting well as the new king of the changelings.” Celly yawned, the long hours of the night getting to her somewhat.

“I’m just wanting to sleep after such a strange and exciting day,” Tia said sleepily, laying a wing over Luna. While many thoughts flew through her head about the various Celestias, the younger sister didn’t hesitate to lean into the embrace of the older sister.

The three Celestias looked towards Molly to hear what she would be returning to, which made the pink-haired princess raise an eyebrow. “You really want to know what, or who I’m getting back to in my universe?”

Everypony’s eyes widened and glanced in different directions, not wanting to make eye contact with Molly. For her part, she giggled, and Luna couldn’t help but note that the giggle sounded innocent with a sinister, lustful purpose.

She had a pretty good idea how Molly acted in her world. The thought of her sister being that lewd almost made her empty her stomach.

In a minute, everyone said their goodbyes and clicked the main gem in their regalia (Celest took out a necklace underneath her suit jacket and clicked it against her chest) and instantly blinked out of existence in the current universe they inhabited.

After a few minutes of letting the events of the meeting stew a little, Celestia rose up from her spot in the private chamber. She lit her horn and teleported Luna and herself to her chambers in the tower.

“Your chamber is still being prepared, last I heard from the servants. Would you like to sleep in another room or…” Celestia glanced back to see Luna already asleep on the floor, curled up almost like a kitten. Suppressing a little giggle, and a little squee, at how cute it looked, Celestia gently lifted Luna up to her bed, laying her on one side while taking her own side.

Sliding the covers over them, Celestia draped one wing over her sister and snuggled into the covers, smiling for what felt like the first time in a thousand years.

Author's Notes:

Wow. Two updates in one day. Y'all are lucky.

And now, we get straight into the meat of the canon of the show. Took us two years, but we're getting there!...