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Fit To Be Tied

by palaikai

Chapter 1: 1. A History Lesson

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1. A History Lesson

An elegantly-shod hoof brushed the gentle point of Princess Celestia's chin as she felt her muzzle crease into a frown. “Oh, it must've been around a hundred years ago or so now,” she finally said after a moment's pause, her frown quickly melting into a more wistful expression as she recalled the events of that day. That's the problem with getting older: just as an attic gets cluttered with all of your forgotten mementoes, so, too, does your mind. “Everypony who was everypony, and everypony who wanted to be somepony, was there that day as Light Bulb astounded us all with his new invention.”

        “Photography?” said Twilight Sparkle, recognising the name from one of the newly-delivered history books. The Castle of Friendship's own library was currently being restocked with duplicates from the Royal Canterlot Library, and Princess Celestia herself had stopped by to check on progress. As well as to spend some time with her partner, something they did all too infrequently these days. Very quickly, the subject had turned to some of the events within those books and Celestia's own role in them. When Twilight had gone to make a pot of tea using the leaves from the Crystal Empire given to her as a house-warming gift by Princess Cadance, it was made abundantly clear to both of them that very little shelving would get done today.

        “Indeed,” replied Celestia with a minute nod of her head. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “There were all the usual suspects, of course: the arty monochrome shot of a pensive-looking elderly relative, a bare tree sat atop a hill and framed by a broken fence, and every variety of waterscape, landscape and skyscape that you could imagine.” She suddenly broke into a giggle.

        “What's so funny?”

        “He used to complain all the time about errant pegasi ruining his shots by flying into his field of view at the critical moment,” Celestia said, her pale cheeks turning rosy as the memory of Light Bulb's annoyance caused her another laughing fit.

        Twilight took a quick sip of her mint tea, savouring the cool, fresh taste, before sitting the mug back down in front of her. “While I appreciate the history lesson, it still doesn't explain-”

        “-I know, Twilight, I know. That's the thing with memories, though: it's like peeling an onion. So many layers.” Princess Celestia looked distracted for a moment. Ever since she had been a filly, Twilight Sparkle had always been very eager. Waiting for things to happen was not her strongest suit. She favoured the younger alicorn with a radiant smile. “We take photography for granted these days, so much so that we don't always notice when somepony has a really good eye for it. Back then, it was all very unpretentious. A way of capturing a moment in time.”

        “There are spells for that,” said Twilight teasingly, hoping to get a rise out of her one-time mentor and now lover.

        “Yes, well,” Celestia said with a roll of her glittering purple eyes, “a way of capturing a moment in time without wrecking the balance of universal harmony, then. Where was I?”

        “Light Bulb. Pegasi. Pretension.” Twilight made sure to keep her face neutral; conversations, especially ones about history, tended to follow a similar narrative with Princess Celestia. Her mind was not neatly-ordered and that often meant putting up with random jumps in the flow of events. A photographic memory, as it were, only somepony had jumbled up all of the slides. She idly wondered if she would be similarly scatterbrained should she be fortunate enough to reach Celestia's age. That's a lot of alliteration, maybe I should rephrase that?

        “Twilight?”

        “Huh?”

        “You were zoning-out. Again,” Celestia said, offering her a mildly-reproving grin.

        “Sorry,” she said, looking sheepish. “What were you saying?”

        “I was saying that, within the exhibit, there was a section dedicated to, ah, shall we say more risque topics of pony society?” said Celestia, her eyes glazing over as she pictured the looks on the snooty, upper-crust Canterlotians' faces as they were simultaneously appalled, intrigued and aroused by the final set of images mischievously worked in by the curator. “To the surprise, or embarrassment, of our guests, there was a display featuring war, death, poverty and, of course, erotica.”

        “Ah,” Twilight said, feeling as though they were finally getting to the crux of matters.

        “Yes.” Her own reaction had been one of muted interest; while the medium itself was a fascinating one, capturing a snapshot of life in a way that even the most gifted of painters couldn't hope to match, her long life afforded her a degree of detachment from the subjects depicted. Celestia had, quite literally, seen it all and had even done most of it. But then, one particular photograph snagged her attention and had left her hopelessly, helplessly hooked:

        At first glance, one's eye was drawn to nothing more than another solitary, sad-looking tree in the middle of nowhere; I was just about to move on when something else demanded that I take a second look, and I'm very glad that I did because it revealed so much more than I had ever been expecting. The tree was old and gnarled, its limbs growing chaotically in whatever direction they damn well pleased, an obvious relic of Equestria's untamed past before ponies had learned to control their environment through the use of magic.

        One of its thicker branches arced some ten feet or so over an idle river; although the photographer had taken great pains to maintain the illusion that the subject was bound by nothing more than the worming tendrils of creeping ivy, vines and the like, they were actually held in place by a series of intricately-knotted ropes that twisted this way and that. The subject in question is a startlingly beautiful blue unicorn. Alive and well, of course, but so still, so at peace with her environment, that you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. The look on her face, of almost ethereal tranquillity, suggests that she's more at home here than anywhere else in the world.

        Awestruck, all I could do was look; I'd seen stunning, sunflower-filled meadows, calm oceans, and cloudless skies, but nothing suggested peace and contentment to me quite like this image does. Also, from a technical standpoint, I'm agog at just how much time and effort must've gone into its construction. I tried to commit every detail to memory, not wanting to forget a single iota of it: the surreal mists cast by the foamy river dashing up against the rocks, the dagger sharpness of every blade of grass curving slightly as a gust of wind tickles them, the wrought patterns and knotholes in the tree's bark. And, perhaps the most striking detail, the pony herself.

        Subject: unknown.

        How disappointing.

        The depressingly formal blurb accompanying the picture offered me nothing to go on; whoever this alluring creature was, I would never know her name, never know anything about her beyond this wonderful scene.

        Trying to forget my momentary annoyance, I return my attention to the image itself; the clarity of detail present extends to far more than just the tree and the grass: the elaborate latticework of the criss-crossed ropes, their perfectly executed knots taking my breath away, were rendered with exquisite crispness. I felt as though I could reach out and feel the roughness of the bindings with my hoof. Individual strands of the unicorn's undulating golden mane can be discerned, falling about her body in a manner which served to accentuate what was on display rather than concealing it from view.

        My eyes were soon drawn to the tiny, almost invisible depressions in her supple flesh where the ropes clung to it; I was surprised by this, thinking that the knots must've been so tight that there was a danger of circulation being cut off, but no. That wasn't the case at all. The unicorn was embraced snugly, tenderly, as if she were in the grasp of a kind and considerate lover.

        Patience.

        This is my key-learning from this picture.

        So many ingredients had to be perfectly balanced for this image to have come about: finding the correct model, one who was willing to endure the no doubt arduous binding procedure; finding the correct location, finding a tree sturdy enough, waiting for the weather to be just right. It boggled the mind when one thought too much about it. Even once the harness adjoining her to the tree had been completed, there still would've been the actual matter of taking the shot, which would've required the right levels of sunlight, a minimum of wind so that the resulting motion blur wouldn't decrease the sharpness of the image.

        The sun was hanging just right in the sky. The blushing light hit at the perfect angle to give the unicorn's beryl surface the slightest hint of shadow in order to accentuate her sinewy muscle, shapely form, and the exquisite flexure of her body.

        Even with so much on display – the ropes did not conceal her anatomy, merely emphasised it – at no point did the picture feel lewd or degrading to its subject. Rather, it was an expression of just how sublime she was.

        Returning to the present with a shake of her head, Celestia used her magic to levitate her own mug to her lips and took a swig of her now-cold tea. “In a way, I suppose I'm glad that I never met the model. There was no way that she could ever live up to the expectations that I build up inside my head surrounding her, and it's nice to be left with a little bit of mystery when you get to be as old as I am.” Intellectually, she could guess at how the whole thing was arranged, but the uncertainty only added to the allure. Did the artist and model have a prior or future relationship? Was it simply a lucky meeting of minds? An invigorating coolness pervaded her chest and she loosed a sigh. “If you're wondering, no, I never saw anything else featuring this particular model. Believe me, I made sure to go to every damn exhibit just in case.”

        “Almost as if the whole thing had been constructed solely for you?” said Twilight, raising her eyebrow as she let the implications of that suggestion sink in, her own tea forgotten as she processed what it was her lover was telling her. “I mean, if you're still so obsessed with her image all these years later, it must've been very powerful.”

        Celestia narrowed her eyes, a snort of protest escaping her nostrils as she did so. “I don't know if obsessed is quite the right word.”

        “Captivated, then,” Twilight said, correcting herself with a dramatic wave of her forelegs.

        “Anyway, I learned much, much later that the practice, known as The Beauty of Tight Binding, had originated in the lands to the far east of Equestria,” said Celestia, faintly amused by Twilight's display. “Our own parochial view of bondage is that it's about power, about subjugating another to our whims, but their version is about the sheer artistry of the knot-weaving, its effects on the body, as well as the intimacy it can create between two ponies.”

        “And,” said Twilight, an imperceptible smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, “it's your wish to do this to me, right?”

        “No,” replied Celestia, her right ear twitching slightly. “I wish to do it with you, Twilight. Even if you are the one who is to be bound, you are still an integral part of the process. The most integral part of the process, I should say.”

        Twilight blew out her breath slowly, her mind awash with memories; in her young life, she'd only ever been bound by monsters seeking to do her, her friends, and Equestria, harm. To her way of thinking, she could not see anything beautiful or sensual about tying somepony up. But she loved Celestia. She said that she would do anything for her. More pertinently, she had just trusted her with something incredibly intimate, something that she had been holding onto a long time, unable to share with anypony else. “Okay,” Twilight finally said.

        Celestia looked at her for a long moment. “Twilight, don't agree just because it's me who is asking. It isn't a deal-breaker, as I believe you say, by any means. I am perfectly content with our relationship as it is.”

        “Mere contentedness is not enough.”

        “I didn't mean-”

        “-I know,” Twilight said quickly, holding up her hoof. “I just mean … you don't know until you try, right? Maybe I'll like it, maybe I won't, but I'm not going to say no just because I don't quite understand. I want to understand this, you, okay?”

        “Okay.” Celestia inclined her head slightly. No point in arguing with her when she's already made her mind up. Especially if she's agreed to at least give it a go.

        Leaning forward, Twilight said, “It's obviously something that is significant to you, otherwise you wouldn't have gone to all that trouble explaining it to me, and that makes it meaningful to me, too. I'm so happy that you felt that you could share something like this with me, and like I said, it would be quite rude of me to dismiss something you see as important just because of my uncertainties.” A curious fluttering sensation tickled her belly, a combination of nervousness but also excitement. Nervouscitement, as Pinkie Pie might've said. It was not what she had been expecting when Celestia had dropped by, but there were few things that she enjoyed more than learning, and learning that there were deeper facets to the mare that she was so desperately in love with was the best kind of education going. “So. How shall we start?”

        “If you don't have anything else on, how about tonight after I lower the sun?” Celestia said, not even bothering to mask her eagerness with her usual formal decorum. “My sister will see to it that nopony disturbs us, short of an Equestria-ending disaster ensuing, that is.”

        “Until tonight, then,” Twilight replied, arching her head rather stiffly before collecting the empty mugs and returning them to the kitchen. Once Celestia had departed in a golden light, she finally let herself fully feel her trepidation. “Oh, Goddesses, what have I let myself in for?” Butterflies danced a merry dance in her stomach.

Next Chapter: 2. Concerning Castles Estimated time remaining: 18 Minutes
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