“Sister?”

Celestia stands before the tall doors to Luna’s suites, smiling faintly, and waits. Beside her is a small bundle, wrapped neatly in fine cloth.

Her business is important but, in the wise way of a pony who has walked across more centuries than most, she is content in the knowledge that things will happen when they’re good and ready.

A sweet, cool breeze wafts through the corridor, blowing in through one of the many landings for pegasi to come and go about the busy everyday routine of the palace staff. The princess smiles wider and closes her eyes, taking a deep breath, letting it flood her lungs with rejuvenating air.

The doors remain still and shut.

Luna is making her wait.

Celestia smiles, and does so.

Outside, the guard is changing. Shining Armor’s voice cuts across the stillness of the early evening, barking out the ceremonial instructions as the golden Day Guard makes way for the gunmetal of the Night. It’s been a very long time since she really listened to the words—simple instructions, really, but like the setting of the sun and the rising of the moon there is a dignity in the ritual. A reminder that this is all actually somewhat important even though it happens every day, an acknowledgement of endings and that beginnings follow in their place.

He really does have a way of sounding proud and noble, doesn’t he? They don’t make stallions like that quite the way they used to...Cadence is a lucky mare indeed.

As she waits before the threshold to her sister’s realm, she lets her mind wander in this fashion, contemplating deep matters such as how tragic it would be for one of their foals to inherit their father’s mane color and their mother’s coat.

Idle thoughts, for a mind waiting to be put to use.

She lets fifteen minutes pass. It seems like a good balance between indulging her sister and getting to things in something like a timely fashion.

Princess Celestia’s lips spread into a gentle smile as she chuckles. “You’ve made your point, Luna.”

Still, there’s a moment before the doors swing open, very slightly. For doors, they do a very excellent job of seeming sulky and resentful of having to make the effort.

The interior of Luna’s receiving room is dimly lit by pale white-blue lamps, which create just enough light to see by but throw harsh shadows about the place. Where the light falls, the white furnishings Luna favors glow like fresh snow under a midwinter moon.

In the center of the room there is a low table and places for several ponies to sit in council. Celestia raises an eyebrow at this novel arrangement—it is almost identical to a similar setup in her own study, such that several ponies could gather around several spread-out documents or a small meal and sit in council together.

Businesslike, yes—but more importantly, it was a place where other ponies were welcomed in. Even in times long past, Luna was ever one to enjoy being the only pony lounging while others stood and spoke to her.

“You’ve made some changes,” Celestia says, nodding approval.

There is no response, and the princess of the moon is nowhere to be seen. But that’s no particular surprise.

Celestia sets her little package down on the table and begins unwrapping it. Inside is a bottle of fine white wine and two spun crystal glasses—her own work, long ago. Smiling, she taps the edge of one with a hoof as she lifts it from the bundle with magic.

Sharp, of course. Ha!

The room seems unnaturally hushed, as if even the books and strange decorations half-hidden in the pale light are watching her with baited breath, as she pours out two generous glasses of the sweet wine. A final clunk echoes through the shadowy room as the half-empty bottle settles down and is freed from the princess’ telekinetic control.

Celestia lifts her glass and sips, looking out a window as she feels reality tug a little next to her.

“I consulted one of the chamberlains, and he told me this was an appropriate wine for this sort of meeting,” she says, calmly.

Nothing, for a few heartbeats.

Then:

A slight ring—sharp, of course—breaks the silence as the other glass lifts from the table.

Luna sniffs the wine a few times, then takes a sip of her own. “Mmm. Not my first choice.”

Celestia turns and gives Luna an apologetic smile. The younger princess is glowering at her in what she probably wouldn’t be happy to hear is a somewhat...adorable way. “Forgive me.”

“For the wine?” Luna asks, sipping again without breaking eye contact. “Or for vanishing for the better part of a week, telling nopony where you were off to, and leaving me here to take charge of a country that seems to manage to survive day-to-day mostly by luck?”

Celestia just smiles and shrugs, making Luna frown and turn to look out the window herself. “You did very well. I heard about all the trouble you were having.”

Luna half-frowns. “I must confess that most of my success was accomplished by yelling at everypony quite a bit. I think three or four ponies have resigned their positions in protest.” The dark princess swirls her glass thoughtfully in midair at some length, before taking a long sip and turning away. “I’m not you.”

Unspoken: They like you.

“Thank heavens. One of me is quite enough, I think,” Celestia replies, giving her sister a grin. “From one princess to another, though...”

“Yes?”

Celestia lets her grin grow wide. “I think the palace staff could stand to be yelled at now and again. Really yelled at by somepony with the knack. I’m just not any good at it, you know—at being forceful, I mean. I just explain things at a higher volume than normal in a stern tone of voice and everypony gets confused...”

Luna barks out a brief, bitter laugh. “I suppose I have to have some talents you do not possess.”

“Oh, don’t be like that. It was a busy time, and you held everything together very well.”

“I was not acting wholly alone, truth be told,” Luna adds, raising an eyebrow. Throwing this out there to see what Celestia would think of it.

Celestia gestures to the table and seats, smiling proudly. “So I see.”

Luna just smiles and turns back to the window.

Celestia delights in this; Luna is not giving the satisfied smile of a victorious schemer, or the shy smile of somepony enjoying praise. Instead, she is thinking back on a very interesting few days where she was called upon to lead and did not find herself wanting, and reflecting on the simple pleasure of having done what she was called on to do...with willing and able help from those around her.

It is a bittersweet delight, considering everything.

But that’s why they need to talk.

They sit together in silence for awhile, watching the day fall away and the sky fade from blue-purple to black, stars winking into life one by one.

“So how was Ponyville, then?” Luna asks, quietly, after a while.

“Oh, my,” Celestia says, in faux shock. “I thought nopony knew where I was.”

“The sun rose and set. Day moved to night and back again. You were safe.” Luna sniffs. “And I’m not stupid.”

There is a tense little moment. An...awkwardness.

But there’s only one way to deal with it, isn’t there...

There’s not always a neat little hook. You just have to come right out and say things.

“I cannot help but notice that you didn’t...check. It would have been the work of a moment,” Celestia observes, her tone carefully idle.

She turns to Luna, who still gazes out at the sky, and sips a rather healthy amount of wine. As the glass pulls away from her lips, the elder princess watches words start to form and die away on them, unvoiced, as Luna considers what to say.

“For one reason or another, I do not feel...welcome there, anymore,” Luna says, finally.

“There are ways you might have gone about it that she wouldn’t have noticed.”

She. Her.

My most faithful stu—

No. No longer. Not as anything but an artifact of what has been.

Now Luna turns to Celestia, looking half-incredulous, half-irritated. “How certain of that are you, sister?”

Celestia smiles faintly at this acknowledgment of Twilight’s prowess. “Fairly said.”

They return their gazes to the dark fabric of the nighttime sky, now glittering with little beads of light.

Neither says anything, but some nameless, ethereal connection between them gives Celestia the confident knowledge that Luna, too, is letting her mind slip back to when they were much, much younger mares and they excitedly named each point in the sky, and drew lines between them, creating names and histories that changed every time they sat together...

The only sound, for some time, is a gentle sip now and again as one of the heavenly sisters enjoys the sweet wine.

“’The morning that never comes...’” Celestia says, eventually.

She perks up, mildly surprised that this was what she’d said, of the many things that needed to be broached.

A memory out of the recent past floats to the forefront of her mind’s eye and Cheerilee speaks.

Just get it all out, and then we’ll sort through it. There’s nothing else we can do.

Back in reality, Luna stirs slightly. “I recall saying this a few months ago, yes.”

Celestia clears her throat, eyes fixed on a distant star. “Can we agree, sister, to speak openly with one another? Hide nothing, and speak the truth of our minds and hearts without reservation, or any ulterior motive?” Now she turns, and Luna eyes her warily. “I...I confess, I have not always...”

“Not always been completely open to me, since I returned?”

The faint bitterness in her sister’s voice stabs at Celestia’s heart.

But I probably deserve worse. I can endure this.

She sighs. “I have not, no.”

Luna deflates somewhat, but says nothing, merely nodding with a slight grimace.

Celestia rewards her with a faint smile and turns to the window again. “At the time I misunderstood your meaning. I thought it some sort of...well, I really did not understand it at all, to tell you the truth. But I believe that ’the morning which does not come’ refers to a sun that no longer wishes to rise, since it has no attachment to the earth any more...”

Silence, for a few heartbeats.

“Yes.”

“Did you truly think I was so lost?” Celestia turns to face her sister properly again, and Luna straightens up, face more or less impassive. “Did you truly think I was...”

Fading? Going dark?

Luna looks away, face twitching now and again as different emotions tugged at her.

“It was not about what I thought, sister. It wasn’t about thought at all,” Luna says bitterly, after a few anxious moments wrestling with herself. “Little I have done lately has been about thought.”

“Luna, I know—”

“It was about what I feared,” Luna says, still looking away. “I hurt you—”

“I’m part of something that’s hurting her, I think...” Cheerilee says, voice thick with anxiety.

“—more than I realized—”

Cheerilee stumbles over her words as Celestia tries to recover from her shock. “And frankly, I’d rather not be.”

“—or...yes, or intended,” Luna finishes, turning to Celestia. Her expression is carefully firm and defiant. “I hurt you, when I accused you of wanting to keep Twilight to yourself, and I meant to hurt you. I wanted you to stop interfering. I was so angry, sister...I didn’t think, I just lashed out. I didn’t even consider that you would be so wounded by it. I had no idea.”

There is a lot in that statement that needs discussing, but Celestia opts for: “Neither did I.”

She waits while Luna silently considers what to say.

It’s strange to watch her in this half-light, where it’s unclear where the shadows end and Luna begins sometimes. She is utterly still and apparently calm, but Celestia knows better; Luna happy and at peace is Luna prowling and vital.

Just like a cat. Unsure, so she freezes in the shadows, hoping not to be noticed.

A thought—one that comes part and parcel with an assortment of memories, some so distant that even to Celestia they seem far away—occurs to her.

She’s always been like this!

And yet, I let myself fear it, just because it’s not how I behave...because I only remembered the darkness of night, and not the light of the moon.

Celestia shakes her head irritably. Foolish, foolish mare...

Eventually the younger alicorn sighs. “In the spirit of openness, sister, may I ask what you have been doing there that you seem relieved of your burdens? Your change in attitude is something like miraculous.”

Her voice is hushed. There’s a hint of irritation in it, yes, but mostly she is poking at a sore spot, wondering if it has healed.

Celestia sighs, closing her eyes, knowing that Luna will not immediately like what she’s about to say. She’d been uncomfortable with the notion herself, but Cheerilee had all but insisted.

“Just...being.”

The little cough of incredulity Celestia knew would be there comes and goes, and she opens her eyes to take in her little sister’s annoyed, but curious expression. “Being, hmm?”

“Yes,” Celestia says, smiling. “Being Celestia.”

Luna gives her a sour look. “Rather than...?”

Celestia doesn’t reply; she merely glances upwards at the crown set atop her head.

“I see,” the younger princess replies, raising an eyebrow. “Dare I ask what that entailed...?”

“Well, among other things, I caught up on some leisure reading. And I napped—I haven’t napped in centuries, not even when I took holidays or sabbaticals. I usually take trips, you see, or do some kind of research...I’d forgotten how pleasant it can be to just...rest.”

Celestia sips the very last of her wine and sets the glass down carefully, maintaining a vague smile despite Luna’s ever-souring expression. The words “meanwhile, here in Canterlot...” are clearly begging to issue from her lips, but Luna is polite enough not to interrupt at this point.

“But the important thing...”

“Yes?”

“The important thing,” Celestia repeats, since the rest of the sentence is stubbornly sticking in her throat, “was the...the talking.”

Luna shifts uncomfortably. “About your relationship with...her?”

“I’m sorry,” Twilight mumbles, looking away. “It’s...it’s just...”

Celestia tries not to let the stab of guilt show on her face. She feared this as much as anything, pressing too much on her all at once, with feelings the princess half-wished she didn’t have, a need that by its very nature she couldn’t satisfy alone. A need to be understood. To be...just Celestia, to a young mare who had more idea than anypony how much that was, even without a crown on atop a flowing, magical mane...

And if they had been alone, it would have played out very differently. Celestia has another flash, another understanding, that if it had just been the two of them, it would have come to an uncomfortable end. Things were changing, and Twilight—no, they were both frightened. Unsure of where to put their hooves because they both wanted a happy ending so, so badly, no matter what shape that happiness came in.

So they’d compromise.

But this was no time for compromise, it was time for everything to happen at once—

Thank heavens they weren’t alone, then.

Cheerilee steps up to Twilight and very gently touches her shoulder with a hoof. She doesn’t need to say anything, or even really do very much; she just lets Twilight quietly steady herself against the gesture and the love that lay behind it, giving the antsy young mare something solid to cling to and move from in the turbulence of this moment.

The princess and the schoolteacher lock eyes.

Everything’s okay. I’m here, for both of you. We’ll make this work.

Still, Celestia cannot help but speak. “I don’t want to frighten you, Twilight. I know this must seem like I am demanding something you cannot just give, but—”

“Shhh,” Cheerilee hisses, giving her a very teacher-y frown. Celestia chuckles despite herself.

And then Twilight speaks.

“I was so afraid of even...wanting it,” she says, smiling weakly. “But...I sort of...well, I guess I...” She looks up, smiling helplessly. “’Friends’ can be a bit of a flexible word, huh?”

“’Friends...but,’” Celestia says, sparing Cheerilee a grateful smile before returning a fond gaze to Twilight. “No more. This is me...all of me.”

They stare at each other for a very long time—two mares, holding everything they’ve known about one another in one hoof and their hopes and dreams in the other. What was and what could be vied to control what the future would be like.

And then...

Twilight rises to her hooves. Cheerilee steps away, smiling broadly, as the unicorn trots forward and nuzzles her old mentor, reduced as she was. Celestia lets out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding, and hums happily as she snuggles back.

“Okay,” Twilight murmurs. “Okay.”

She says this instead of “please”, or “yes”, or “of course”, or any other foolish word that would make it seem like she was begging or demanding or accepting, because that’s not what’s happening. She’s simply acknowledging something that wants to be true, has striven to be true ever since that first lesson—no, since that first moment, when a terrified young filly looked up and saw somepony who really, truly inspired her.

But now that pony is just the other mare in the room, not a goddess or even a mentor: she is hurt and lonely and real. And all it does is make their friendship more precious and honest than it ever was before.

The world falls into place, and everything is right.

And then they both laugh, hugely, because if they didn’t laugh they’d cry, and that just wouldn’t do at all.

“Mmm. Among other things.” Celestia rises to her hooves and strides towards the window. “All three of us had a great deal we needed to talk about, in the company of friends.”

Without looking, she knows Luna’s face to be rolling through a selection of responses, little twitches or tics here and there betraying her discomfort. Any immediate response would almost certainly be teasing or snide, but Luna was holding her tongue rather admirably.

In the back of her mind, Celestia knows this to be Luna being careful, trying not to upset her big sister too much.

Frankly, it was quite welcome.

“As it happens, sorting things out about my relationship with Twilight and Cheerilee was very simple,” she says, and wonders briefly if it’s a lie.

Were things so complex that they ended up being simple, or so simple that we wrapped complexity around them because nothing should be so easy..?

She shakes her head and continues. “We all understand one another better, now.”

The absence of a smug, sly-sounding hmmph—an unvoiced oh, is that so?—makes her turn back to Luna, who is sitting next to the table behind her, looking mildly pleased.

Celestia’s brows knit, despite herself. “I thought you’d be skeptical.”

“Where you and Twilight Sparkle are concerned, I think doubt is foolish in the extreme,” Luna says, quietly.

“Perhaps.”

Luna gives Celestia a very small little smile, a tiny hint of her usual slyness peeking around the very edges. “So you and Twilight are...?”

“Friends,” Celestia says, definitively. When Luna raises an eyebrow, Celestia just grins and continues, a little more quietly. “Close friends, very close. Which is part of why I wanted to talk to you—she and I want to become much more than just friends—”

To Celestia’s amusement, Luna’s ears prick up in alarm as she recoils. “Sister! What about poor Cheerilee?”

“What?” Celestia replies, innocence dripping off her voice. “She was the one who proposed it, although she freely acknowledges that we were all thinking it. And she can watch, if she likes, I suppose.”

Luna blinks a few times. “That’s...very open-minded of her—”

“Indeed. She is very generous, you know, especially since it promises to mean a lot of loud noises and strange smells in her house. But the truth is she’s nothing but supportive of Twilight’s career.”

“Wait—career...?”

There is a busy little moment as everything pauses to let Luna re-arrange the contents of her head.

“I suppose you think you’re very clever,” she growls, holding Celestia in an irritable expression that almost certainly hid grudging amusement.

The elder princess allows herself a brief chuckle before replying. “So you see why I need to talk to you, yes? If Twilight and I intend to do research together, it will mean a lot of time away from the palace, working in her lab in Ponyville or at one of the universities.” She looks back at the ad hoc council table and smiles. “I just didn’t want to force something like that on you without discussing it first—again, in any case. I’d be obliged if you would consider it.”

Luna’s eyes narrow for a moment. “And just how often would you be...absent?”

Celestia lets her sister’s suspicious gaze pass through her, not even reacting. “Oh...at first, I’ll just need to set time aside to gather research materials, here at the Palace, but eventually, it might be as often as two weeks of every month. We discussed some very interesting possibilities.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Luna makes a show of putting on a contemplative expression. “I will give it some thought, since you ask so politely.”

Internally, Celestia tries to smile as much as she is physically.

The opportunity to be the princess you are should not be something I am presenting to you now.

Heavens above, Luna...I’m so sorry.

But it’s not quite time for that.

“Thank you, Luna. Would you care for some more wine?”

“Please.”

For a long moment, the only sound is the gentle ring of magic and the swirl of liquid in the crystal goblets, followed by more silence interrupted only by polite sipping.

The stars beyond the window twinkle on, unmoved by and unconscious of the nervous tension.

Luna huffs a little laugh, turning a sarcastic look on Celestia. “All that time to decide to do something I know you have always at least wished to do. I’ve seen you two working together.”

Celestia lets a little uncomfortable silence build up after this statement, staring at the strange reflection of the starlight in her wine. Luna shifts uncomfortably, taking a rather larger gulp from her own glass.

“I needed this, Luna,” she says, in a solemn hush. “I needed them. I needed to be...away.”

She gazes down into her wine some more, not particularly interested in torturing herself with whatever expression of unhappiness was currently occupying her sister’s face.

“Away from Canterlot.”

“Not...exactly.”

Luna sniffs—a quiet, lonely little sound, which makes Celestia turn to her, sympathy swelling.

The younger princess is sitting straight up, face completely impassive save for a raised eyebrow, no sign of any weakness or hurt whatsoever...not that Celestia had expected to find any, if she was honest.

“Away from me,” Luna says, stiffly.

Celestia sighs. “Yes.”

“I am not sure the idea of you needing to escape me to spend time with her comforts me just at the moment,” Luna murmurs, her low tone filling the careful words with her real feelings on the matter.

“It doesn’t?”

“No.”

“I suppose I cannot blame you for that,” Celestia says, setting her glass down on the table before giving her sister a solemn look. “But I think you’re being a bit uncharitable.”

Luna affects a sarcastic little grin, drawing herself up magisterially. “Please, sister, your pardon, I beg you. It’s just that I can’t help but suspect that if the name Luna of the Moon managed to arise in the conversations that filled the time between naps, it was not in tones of affection. I have not been on my best behavior, of late, have I? Lo, there in Ponyville, a conclave of the ponies most wronged by a wayward princess, taking comfort in commiseration, far from their tormentor.”

This last sentence was spoken with such bitterness that Celestia actually winces.

Luna barks a weak laugh. “So you see where I am perhaps a bit suspicious of your grandiloquent gestures of peace and openness just now. I have received them before, have I not? And yet—”

“And yet, here we are,” Celestia says, interrupting her.

Her sister makes a slightly mocking gesture, almost sneering: so much for pleasant speech.

Celestia sighs. Privately, she’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this level of theatricality, but...

Some things had to be done, no matter how hard, or how little you wanted to.

She stands, taking a deep breath, then matches Luna’s glare with a cool look of her own.

And smiles.

“You’re quite right. Words are hollow without actions to match...”

Celestia breathes out...and lets go.

For a moment, the universe is slightly confused.

Luna recoils, drawing up a hoof in shock, wings splaying in anxiety. “Sister...!”

With care, Celestia lifts the slim, diminished crown from her head with magic, and sets it on the table next to the parcel and the now-empty bottle of wine. She looks up—up—at her sister, and smiles, her dignity interrupted momentarily by a few stray strands of pink mane flopping down over her eyes.

“I...I thought I felt...” Luna murmurs, dumbfounded. “But I couldn’t believe it. You—you never...did they know what they were seeing...?”

“No,” Celestia says, settling back down again. “Twilight suspects there’s more to it than I let on, but she didn’t ask and I’m not about to just tell her. A mare should be allowed her secrets, until they need not be a secret any longer..”

“If they only knew...” Luna says, eyes still wide. She looks Celestia up and down, mesmerized. “I never thought I would see you like this again—”

Internally, Celestia braces herself, but on the outside, she tries to maintain her pleasant little smile.

“Vulnerable, you mean?”

For a moment, Luna seems stunned, blinking helplessly.

But just as suddenly Luna’s shock is gone, and the shadows creep about her again, filling a sly smile with sinister implications. “Perhaps I should allow you to reconsider. This...this changes things. Where once there was the Sun and Moon, now the situation is a little less...even.”

Celestia cannot help but stiffen, slightly. Like this, her body isn’t quite as precisely under her control.

Luna notices, and her eyes twinkle. “There was a time when you wouldn’t dare do this,” she whispers.

“All too recent a time, I’m afraid,” Celestia admits, closing her eyes and trying to control her breathing. “To my shame.”

“Oh, so you admit—”

“I admit being...suspicious. Too suspicious, I think.”

“Perhaps you weren’t wrong. You know, right now, I could—”

“You could do a great many things, I know,” Celestia says. “But you won’t.”

The room grows colder, little by little, as the pause lingers. With her eyes closed, Celestia’s magnificent imagination cannot help but show her ice crawling up the walls like long frozen fingers, reaching and consuming...

“How can you be so sure...?”

The tone of voice sends a jolt of alarm through the elder alicorn. Luna—no matter how wild or angry or devious she was being—was never that...proud. That commanding. That condescending.

That...evil.

But there you were.

Celestia smiles.

“Nightmare Moon would have done them already.”

Silence fills the room. Even the sounds of the world outside are totally absent, for what seems like an eternity.

Finally, Celestia takes a long, slow breath, releasing it as a sigh through a fading smile, eyes still closed.

What will I see when I open them, I wonder?

Cheerilee, you really are clever...

“That’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it,” she says, quietly. “What you wanted to talk to me about, but I wouldn’t listen...”

There is a hint of a rustling of feathers. Of a coat drawn across fine upholstery.

No words.

“That is the hardest thing for us,” Celestia continues, as evenly as she can. “Being afraid of ourselves. We’re the princesses! We are old beyond old, wise beyond wise, above some mortal concerns...so when we are afraid that we are going wrong, where do we go?”

“To Ponyville, it seems,” Luna says, her voice returned to something like normal—but the sarcasm in it was faint, the malice utterly absent, the...whole of it, deflated and miserable.

“Quite so. And isn’t that a tragedy, that we flee our home in this way? You were right, Luna. I was fading. I was losing myself to despair—I needed Cheerilee and Twilight to be brave for me. Me! The Princess of the Sun!” Celestia laughs, a bit bitterly. “I was suddenly so afraid I was stifling her—and I was, to a degree. But I was crushing myself, too, and I had nopony to talk to—”

A sudden pressure on her hoof makes her snap her eyes open and look down—

There, tears threatening to destroy her expression of determined solemnity, was the little sister Celestia had found in the Temple of Two Sisters, all those years ago, clutching at her big sister’s hoof like a rock in a storm at sea.

Shadow still blurs Luna’s diminished shape—but then it would do so for Twilight, too, who is similarly dark-colored. The shade didn’t writhe and flow anymore, it just fell across her as if she were any pony out on the darkened streets. Her slim black crown sits lopsided on her head, tangled in a mess of long blue mane that always manages to fall over one eye.

The little princess of the moon gazes up at her sister with terrible firmness. “Sister,” she gasps. “Sister, I—”

“We did talk about you,” Celestia says, smiling weakly. “Quite a lot, in fact. There were a great many things we needed to come to understand.”

“Celestia, please listen to me—this is all my fault—”

“No, Luna,” Celestia murmurs. “It’s mine.”

“Perhaps there will always be a part of me that resents you, Twilight,” Celestia says, with a hollow, humorless chuckle, staring off at nothing.

Cheerilee frowns at the princess as she cuddles Twilight, who despite a valiant attempt at a firm, supportive expression had rather obviously been upset by this somewhat poorly-phrased comment.

“But then, that is just as unfair of me as the rest of it, so it’s in keeping,” Celestia continues, closing her eyes. “It could not have been me that saved her. There was nothing I, me, her sister, could have done...now, a thousand years later, in any case.”

She leans her head back, breathing out slowly. Solemnity came easy, now, fed by the knowledge that soon all of this would be out of her heart and mind, purged like so much vomit. It was coming out; soon enough it would be over, and then all that was left was to clean up. So as disgusting as the process, the act, was...it would end, and be gone in due time.

“She needed me,” Celestia says, wishing she’d sob. Wishing it didn’t come out of her dead and hollow, resigned to her condemnation. “She was getting...lost. Reaching out for help, really, by being so provocative. Displaying how hurt she was by being very open in her wrongdoing, as if she didn’t care—you know how ponies like that are. But then, in the moment, did I go to her, hear her out? Was I the other mare for her? Of course not,” she finishes, grateful to finally manage some emotion, even if it was bitterness.

“Princess, I—”

“Yes! Yes, Twilight,” Celestia says, quickly, a sudden lightning flash of anger finding ready fuel in the dried-up emotional plains of her mind. “She needed her sister, and what did she find? A princess! An angry princess, a frightened princess, a princess who did not want to understand, but instead to sit in judgment, prove her nobility and justice, a princess who was desperate to believe that her sister was truly lost because the thought that Luna, who I love so very, very dearly, had done such...foulness...was unbearable.”

She shakes her head, dimly aware of the two ponies sitting across from her cuddling together, struggling to accept what they were hearing.

“It could only have been you to save Luna. I did not deserve even to ask it of you,” Celestia says, face contorting into an ugly grimace. “I was the one who judged and damned her in the first place.”

“And here I was,” Celestia finishes, solemnly, “doing it again.”

Luna stares at her, lips moving very slightly around words she cannot quite bring herself to say.

“I needed them, Luna. They just sat there and let me talk, let me figure things out aloud, in a place where I was...safe, for lack of a better word. Let me rest, and recover my strength. It’s what anypony needs, when they’re in pain.” She turns a patient smile on Luna’s somewhat sullen expression. “It’s what you need, now.”

Now? Now?!

Celestia sighs, aware that her voice had betrayed a momentary discomfort. It was a politeness to herself, but...like so many politenesses, it was a little bit of a lie, to spare her feelings. Her sister had needed this well before now.

Luna just glares for a while, lips curled downward in the miserable, grumpy expression she saved for when she’d lost her composure and shown far too much vulnerability and was regretting it.

“Where else do I have to go?” she mutters, through her teeth, after a long while.

“That is our crisis, isn’t it,” Celestia replies, quickly, sensing her sister’s mood shifting towards self-pity. “For all that I was fortunate to find help and sympathy in my young friends, someday, they will be gone. And even while they’re with me, there are just some things they will never really be able to understand, because they’re not...you. A princess, an alicorn, a ruler...something like a goddess. While I have lately been reminded that the young can be many things to me, they cannot be my sister. In the very, uttermost end...we have each other.”

They hold their gaze a little while longer. Luna’s face remains a bit twitchy; Celestia can tell that if she were not so...real, at the moment, there would be only the hint of a presence in the deep shadows of her chambers.

In Celestia’s mind, the way this should go was clear: Luna should gratefully and happily admit her own desire for closeness, they hug, they talk.

But that’s just in her mind. She really is too used to being in charge...

Luna is Luna, just as she’d always been, and it was disrespectful and condescending to demand she be anything else. As such, it was probably counterproductive at this point to force a similar admission of need from her at the moment. She’d never willingly say it, and she’d resent being forced to.

No, Luna is not Twilight and Cheerilee, who for all their complexities were very straightforward and open about things, in the end. Luna is private. Luna takes pleasure in feeling like she is in control. Luna likes to be mysterious. Luna likes to play games, try to outwit you...

Luna is different.

Luna is so...Luna.

I missed it.

“I do not want to spend another thousand years without you, one way or another,” Celestia whispers. “I couldn’t bear it.”

“What if you have to?” Luna says, suddenly, her voice little more than a harsh hiss. “What if you have no choice?”

A tense pause fills the room.

“I refuse to accept that,” Celestia says, firmly. “I—”

She’s interrupted by a sudden burst of bitter laughter from Luna.

Celestia frowns. “What?”

“You,” Luna says, shaking her head, weakly. She grins fiercely before continuing, a mocking light in her eyes. “Big sister knows she made a mistake, all those years ago. Big sister wants to help. Big sister is here to fix everything, just like she always does. Is that it?”

“I—” Celestia begins, catching the reflexive denial in her throat before it escaped and ruined everything. She looks away for a moment, swallowing the petty sentiment as well as the sudden, embarrassed thickness in her throat.

Hadn’t she just spent time helping Cheerilee think through the exact same impulse? Hadn’t she and Twilight let the young schoolteacher complain at length about how hard it was to accept that she couldn’t just fix things for, say, Macintosh, even though she still wanted to more than she knew how to express?

She reminds me of you, Twilight had said. As ever, Celestia’s protege saw further than even she realized, from time to time.

Luna tilts her head, a little curiously. “You’re too used to dealing with mortals, I think.”

“No, just to dealing with creatures who can only see the crown on my head,” Celestia says, with a sigh. “Mortal or otherwise. But you have your own crown, of course.”

“Indeed.”

Luna rises from her place, a little awkwardly, trying to regain some of her air of regal mystery after revealing so much hurt by expressing as much grace and poise as possible. With a deliberate, thoughtful air she wanders over to a window, through which the bright moon shone boldly against the sky, casting her diminished form into a harsh silhouette—a tiny pony shape barely eclipsing a fraction of the shimmering white bulk.

“I should not be so...cutting,” she says, after awhile, head turned very slightly over her shoulder. “I should be pleased you wish to help, and that you’ve put yourself through so much struggle on my behalf. But I need to know you will listen, not merely make more forgiving judgments of me. As you say...I have nopony else to turn to.”

Celestia says nothing.

After a moment Luna smiles slightly. “Well said.”

“Forgive me,” Celestia says, quietly. “This is not...easy for me.”

“I should hope not,” Luna replies, a bit harshly. “I am not some small, brief creature whose life and circumstances are yours to manipulate as you see fit.”

“Nopony’s—no creature’s—life is mine,” Celestia says, firmly.

Luna laughs, a single, harsh sound that expresses nothing but bitterness. “Well, doesn’t that bring us to the pony in question...”

Celestia sits back, grimacing. “Twilight.”

“Yes.”

The younger princess stares out at the moon for a while longer, still as a statue. Celestia just waits, despite an urgent desire to say...

Something. Anything.

“My affair with her has been...troubling me,” Luna says, not turning around. “Tell me, with your newly enlightened attitude, your new insight into our situation...what do you think of all of it?”

Celestia pauses for a moment, settling herself, before responding. “I don’t think you meant to hurt her.”

“Of course I didn’t,” Luna says, coolly. “Don’t be foolish.”

“But you were acting in hurt,” Celestia continues, carefully. “You have been...humiliated, shamed, diminished, not least of all by me. I can imagine that Twilight looking upon you as...as an idol, as a goddess, something to be desired...it must have been irresistible.”

She pauses, watching Luna carefully. The younger alicorn sits quiet and still for a long moment before her wings fluff. “It was certainly...pleasant...to be desired by her.”

“Luna...” Celestia murmurs, grinning slightly. “There’s a time for politeness—”

“Would you perhaps prefer to hear the details of my feelings for her? All of them?” Luna snaps, irritably.

Celestia grimaces. It’s not like her sister to give up an invitation to be suggestive, just to make her point...but then she wouldn’t just now. “I merely wanted to know if I am on the right path, in my reasoning.”

Luna’s wings flutter again, and Celestia is sure she’s wrestling against a strong urge to conceal any sign of weakness.

“It was...very appealing. She’s extremely attractive, in her way. Unlike anypony I have taken as a lover before—”

“That’s not what I’m talking about, Luna,” Celestia says, conscious she’s pressing a little harder in her tone, if nothing else, than was probably wise. “You know very well that I hardly need you to tell me that she’s an attractive young mare. But I’m talking about you. Not her.”

Luna again freezes, saying nothing.

“And let us be honest, since we’re being honest,” the elder sister continues, now caught for a moment on a little surge of emotion she ought have controlled for the moment, “and be overt about everything. It was pleasant for you, wasn’t it, to be the one she wanted since she was, for lack of better phrasing, mine. At the time.”

“That...did occur to me,” Luna hisses, reluctance dripping off every syllable.

Celestia allows herself a little moment of schadenfreude. “I’m sure the less flattering side of that particular aspect of your relationship occurred to you.”

Luna’s reply is a low, angry growl through her teeth. “Eventually.”

If it makes you feel better, Cheerilee felt the same way...

Celestia shakes her head. No need to involve poor Cheerilee in this; she already has one princess disturbing the peace of her home and mind.

“So: you get to be Twilight’s goddess, the mysterious and beautiful creature offering her a secret, private world of pleasures I never did, or could—as you correctly pointed out. But as I have been reminded, lately, being a goddess, a princess—being the crown, shall we say...it is not easy. It takes courage and strength, to be patient and forgiving and endure what others cannot. And I don’t think you were capable of it, sister. You’re too tired, too hurt.”

One of Luna’s ears flicks a few times, but no other response seems forthcoming.

Celestia presses on, her voice growing harsh. “So you tried to be it, struggling to maintain a divine facade despite your desire to just be close to her. You pushed her to ’learn’ about love, romance, and her sexuality, ignoring my advice to just do what you wanted anyways because that would not only be doing what I advised but because it made you feel weak and vulnerable to just want somepony to love you.”

Luna shrugs. Celestia is actually somewhat impressed; considering who she is speaking to, she might as well have just witnessed a tearful confession.

“Then she disappointed you,” Celestia continues, “and you were distraught, so you rejected her far, far too harshly. When she made demands of you, demanded you accept her, you were offended despite yourself. And when she turned from you, in the end, I think you may have even hated her, for a time—”

“Yes, sister, yes,” Luna croaks, loud enough to cut through Celestia’s firm, raised tone. “You have the way of it. Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

Luna rounds, suddenly, her wings splaying behind her like a cloak. Moonlight glitters across the sheen of her feathers as they settle around her again, her eyes boring into Celestia’s.

She smiles. “It really does comfort me to hear you be so sympathetic to my outlook,” she says, before taking a deep breath. “But I suspect the words creeping into your mouth even now are something like: ’it would be easy to blame this all on some lingering remnant of the darkness’, yes?”

Celestia nods. “Indeed. That was the conclusion I came to.”

“You?”

“Not alone, but...yes, these are my thoughts.”

Luna’s smile grows a little wider for a moment, although not in a way that suggests she’s actually happy about this so much as grimly pleased. She takes a few steps back towards Celestia, slowly and gracefully, eyes closed—almost dancing, or reminding herself that she was capable of moving so gently.

“This is why I said you need to listen, sister,” Luna says, not opening her eyes, bobbing her head to music only she could hear.

Celestia stirs as she realizes what’s happening—she herself did this from time to time, using her impeccable memory to ’hear’ music as a way to calm herself. Cheerilee had even realized that she’d taught Twilight to do it, when the two of them had started doing it at the same time—you can’t get anything past a pony used to watching twenty foals at once.

“If I were anypony else, your analysis would be complete,” Luna continues, her tone of voice idle. It sends chills down Celestia’s spine; she’s losing herself in the music because whatever was on her mind was terrible indeed. “But you are being yourself. Too forgiving. Refusing to let me be...too wrong.”

Celestia struggles to say anything to this. “I’ve already expressed that you’ve harmed somepony you loved—”

Luna’s eyes open, wide, and Celestia freezes.

Icy-blue, leering, draconic...

The eyes of a demon.

“L-Luna, what is this?” Celestia hisses.

“Twilight should be glad that all I did was hurt her feelings and be a bit bitter with her,” Luna says, her voice wavering between her own and something much, much darker. She closes her eyes again, bracing herself against the floor as if she’d been sprinting for miles, panting. “It could...it could have been so much worse. She wouldn’t have even understood why you were trying to save her from her mistress, who she loved beyond words...”

Celestia rises, wings spreading, but before she can move too far, Luna looks up again, her eyes once again cool teal and all pony.

“This is why I said you need to listen,” Luna says, her body shuddering with each heaving breath as if she’d just been sick. “You said it yourself: I am shamed, diminished, reduced...and yes, her affections made me feel powerful, and want to remain powerful. But sister, I know power. And you are right...I wanted to taste it again. So, so badly. You were wise to remind me of how things were when they were going bad...”

Celestia has to struggle not to recoil, fighting to keep a terrified scowl off her face. “You...you should have—”

“What? I should have what? Told you? Would you have listened as patiently as you are in this moment?” Luna snaps. “I am not like other ponies, sister. I am not like Twilight Sparkle and Cheerilee, where things can be solved with a conversation and a week of naps! I don’t even know if this can be stopped,” she adds, throwing her head back mournfully.

“What is...this, exactly?” Celestia repeats.

“Temptation,” Luna whispers, shuddering. “I could have—I wanted to—”

She stops herself short, looking away and wrapping her wings around herself, trembling.

Celestia lets go of a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.

This is...unexpected, but...

She steps forward, slowly, but Luna’s gaze jerks up and she backs away, hooves skittering on the stones of the floor.

“Forgive my...show,” Luna mutters. “But you needed to...understand. This was not something that was wiped away like chalk from a slate, Celestia. You treat it like it’s something that has passed away, and I’m irrational for fearing it will return. You do not understand. It is something...evil, in me. Forever, maybe.”

Celestia closes her eyes, and remembers.

Twilight frowns anxiously. “I don’t like this plan,” she mutters.

“Well I didn’t like my plan, either, but here we are,” Cheerilee says, giving her young lady friend a smug look. She returns a grim, but gentle smile to Celestia. “Remember: you have to be the strong one. The brave one. You’re going to have to swallow her being a bit witchy, I have no doubt. But you have to find it in your heart to trust her, so she can trust you...”

“It is something you control, Luna,” Celestia says, opening her eyes. “You may have been tempted to do things, but you did not do them. You let Twilight go. You have not tried to harm me in any way. You have not interfered with Cheerilee at all. These are opportunities Nightmare Moon would not have let go to waste. You control this.”

The younger alicorn scowls. “For the moment.”

“I appreciate that,” Celestia says, trying to smile. “Fortunately, that is something that can be helped.”

She steps forward again, and this time Luna does not back away, instead just looking up at her sister warily.

“There’s a little darkness in everypony, Luna,” the elder sister says, quietly, coming to a stop at a slight, but comfortable distance. “But you are right to say that while we may in many ways be just like every other pony in Equestria, there are so many ways we just palpably are not. That said...this is not one of them.”

Luna bristles. “Sister, I have tried to tell you—”

“Are you so eager to be damned?” Celestia says, firmly. “You certainly argue, very eloquently and passionately, for being an inevitable loss.”

“Of course not,” Luna says, a light of anger reigniting in her eyes. “But—”

Celestia raises a hoof. “But you fear that you are. You fear, I think, that you aren’t strong enough to fight off this temptation to return to the darkness, because as you say, whatever else you were in the dark, you were powerful. You could not be hurt, or questioned...or rejected. Even if you did wrong.”

Luna’s lips twitch a few times before she mutters, “Yes.”

“That is something I can help you with,” Celestia says, smiling. “Because I know that the power you want is power over yourself. You are hurt—traumatized. Humiliated, as we’ve both agreed. And you have made many mistakes and hurt some ponies—Twilight, myself...but none more than you have been hurt by being unable to just be what you want to be. You judge yourself too harshly. Everypony wants to feel powerful; but for you and I, those stakes are somewhat exaggerated. That’s all.”

They sit for a long time, just staring at each other—Luna scowling faintly, Celestia trying to maintain her smile.

“There are some things even a goddess should not have to face alone...”

Celestia stirs, and feels a bit foolish when she realizes it was she, not Cheerilee, who had spoken.

Well, it helped one princess be brave enough to be weak, didn’t it...?

And indeed:

Luna’s expression fades to a mild sadness. “No.”

She turns away, trotting slowly up to the window again, once more cast in harsh relief against the moon. She stares out at Equestria for a long, long while.

“That means we need to talk, Luna,” Celestia says, with perhaps a little more pressing in it than she probably meant. “About...everything that’s happened, really.”

“I know,” Luna says, quietly, still staring out the window, totally unmoving.

They sit like this for a while more. Celestia wishes she was not so drained, so that she could happily wait on her sister’s fickle temper as she had not a half hour earlier...but wait she does.

When Luna’s silhouette changes, it is so minutely that it might almost be considered nothing, if it were not an alicorn expressing as much control over herself as possible. She barely moves her head to indicate she was addressing Celestia. “When were you of a mind to return to Ponyville next, sister?”

Celestia raises an eyebrow. “I...well, I was waiting to see what came of our conversation before I made any plans.”

“Prudent, as always,” Luna murmurs. She turns her head a little more. “Two weeks.”

“That’s suitable,” Celestia says, rising. “I’ll go write Twilight and Cheeri—”

“You misunderstand.”

Celestia pauses, suddenly unsure.

Luna looks back out the window, sighing. “I, too, could use some time to myself. Some time...apart,” she says, her voice cool and idle. “And these last few days have been helpful for me, in the end. I’ve been too occupied with events and ponies to...brood. And further, if you intend to be absent more in the future, it would be as well if everypony got used to it sooner rather than later. You have yourself told me that sometimes change needs to happen suddenly so that there is no dragging-out period when things are...unclear.”

“I see,” Celestia says, staring at the black figure in the window.

She has a point, and a right...

But do I trust her?

Do I have a choice but to trust her?

“Two weeks, so I can think about what needs to be said. And two weeks for you to rest, with your friends, so that you can be strong enough to listen to them.” Now Luna turns fully, her face deadly serious, her eyes gleaming with the harsh light of stars, burning in the heavens. “There will be many things that will be very hard for you to hear, sister.”

Celestia’s heart pounds, hard, a few times, and she takes a slow breath to calm herself.

“Of that I have no doubt,” she says, through a weak smile. “But speaking from my own experience, recently, I suspect they will be just as hard for you to say.”

Luna nods, solemnly. “Perhaps.”

And something about the way she says this makes it clear that was that.

Celestia gives her a little smile and turns back to the table. With careful grace, she returns the slim crown to her forehead and feels herself return to herself—

Or whatever crude words I want to put around this feeling...

Maybe Cheerilee and Twilight will know, between them. Someday.

—-and lifts the parcel, deftly slipping the glasses and empty bottle of wine into it with ease.

She has almost reached the door when Luna’s voice sounds.

“Sister, one more thing.”

Celestia turns. Luna remains silhouetted against the moon, a slim black figure, small and momentarily robbed of her rightful divinity but still proud for all that.

“Yes?”

“About...her...”

Ah.

Celestia clears her throat, frowning. She is less certain of this than she wants to be, but she has to hope for the best. It’s rarely unreasonable to expect from Twilight Sparkle, after all.

“She is still very hurt. Frightened of you. But I believe she wants to forgive you, deep down,” Celestia says, carefully. “That will take some time, I think.”

Luna is still as ever. She doesn’t respond immediately, but Celestia senses the intensity of her thought and remains where she is, waiting for Luna to make up her mind and speak.

Finally the silhouette moves, a shadow across the bright face of the moon.

“I love you, sister.”

“And I love you, Luna,” Celestia says, smiling. “You know where I’ll be if you need me.”

And as the doors to the darkened chambers close behind her, Celestia knows Luna is smiling, too.

Sunlight suddenly falls across Cheerilee’s face, and in half-conscious defiance of the morning finally arriving, she automatically rolls over and groans.

It’s Saturday. Can’t I have one day where I can just...uh...what’s it called...?

Sleep! Sleep. That’s it.

A snatch of idle thought waves as it passes through her mind, and she grins.

She does, after all, have a direct line to the right pony to complain to. Since she was sleeping out on the balcony, all Cheerilee had to do was throw a pillow or something.

Heh.

But if she had hoped to doze back off, that hope is now extinguished. She’s been thinking too hard; even covering her head with a pillow won’t stave off the terrible inevitability of consciousness anymore.

Cheerilee rolls over, reaching out for Twilight—

Her eyes open all the way and she sits up, brows furrowing. Twilight’s place in bed isn’t even warm.

They talked about this...!

“Twilight Spar—!” she begins to yell, but before her lady friend can enjoy the full extent of her awakening displeasure, Cheerilee is interrupted.

It is a rather loud explosion, after all—even muffled as it was coming from the basement.

It sort of rumbles and lingers for a while, in the fashion of something rather complicated failing spectacularly to stay in one piece, and is highlighted now and again with little staccato bangs and crashes of ricocheting debris. Cheerilee shuts her eyes against the sound, wincing every time she hears something heavy crash around.

After twenty seconds or so, the worst seems to be over. Cheerilee opens an eye, peering around the faintly-lit room and out into the library beyond the door, which is now hanging open.

Nothing appears to be on fire or floating in midair—so far, anyways.

So, on the whole, not so bad, comparatively. Room for cautious optimism.

Cheerilee forces herself to uncoil from her tense cringe, willing muscles to relax and taking three deep, calming breaths.

In...I’mgoingtokillher...and out.

In...She’sgoingtoregretthis...and out.

In...Ihopethey’reokay....and out.

With that, she rolls out of their big bed and trots out to greet what was already looking to be a very irritating morning.

The library floor has not survived the excitement with much grace; at least two shelves had fallen and others had vomited their contents onto the floor. Cheerilee tsks under her breath, shaking her head.

At least she wouldn’t be the one cleaning it all up.

“Twilight?” Cheerilee calls, not entirely happily, as she descends the staircase to the main floor. “Twilight, honey, is everything all right?”

The door to the basement bursts open and Twilight Sparkle emerges from a cloud of bright multi-colored smoke, coughing and hacking. The air is suddenly filled with a strange citrus smell of such immense potency that Cheerilee can already feel her sinuses draining.

Twilight’s eyes were hidden behind a massive pair of smoked goggles—well, they were smoked now, anyways, along with the rest of her face and most of the front of her body, and her mane was thrust out behind her head as if it had been glued that way. The only thing that wasn’t sooty and blackened is her huge, bright smile, which is suddenly thrust into Cheerilee’s face as Twi grabs her hoof excitedly.

“Cheerilee!” Twilight hisses in an enthusiastic half-whisper, shaking Cheerilee’s hoof vigorously. “Point zero three percent, Cheerilee!”

“That’s nice,” Cheerilee replies, extracting her hoof from the wild shaking with some difficulty. “That’s...good, I take it?”

“Good? Good?” Twilight exclaims, lifting the glasses from her face with magic to reveal the clean coat underneath, making her look bizarrely like a raccoon in reverse. Her eyes were wide with excitement and delight. “Cheerilee, it’s...amazing!”

“It doesn’t seem like, er, all that much, is all,” Cheerilee says, trying to keep up as best she could.

Another pair of hoofbeats on the basement stairs draws their attention, and another mare appears—to Cheerilee’s shock, just as dirty and exploded as Twilight. The very ends of her short pink mane is slightly burned, even.

Celestia gives Cheerilee a pleasant smile, raising her own goggles to reveal the stark white beneath. “The important thing is that it’s point zero three, rather than, say, point three. You see?”

“Transmission flux variance!” Twilight gushes, grabbing Cheerilee’s hoof tightly again. “Don’t you see? I would never have expected to get it down that low. Well, not in these preliminary tests, anyways...”

Cheerilee gives her best mare a faint smile, before letting her eyes wander over to the princess’ so they could share an affectionate but weary glance. They both know all too well that there was a point where Twilight Sparkle’s attachment to the here and now was a bit lost among the excitement of poking a hole in the universe.

Celestia clears her throat, giving Twilight’s barely contained glee a tolerant little smile before turning back to Cheerilee. “We’re working on a permanent transportation array—just a device anypony can step into and teleport to another device elsewhere. Briefly, she’s describing the likelihood of an apple being sent from one place and arriving as an orange.”

Twilight frowns and shoots Celestia a frustrated look. “That’s a bit of a generalization. You’re skipping over all the nuances—particle flows, aether dissonance—”

“It’s also what happened to the last six apples we put through the array, Twilight,” Celestia says, calmly.

“That’s no excuse not to explain it thoroughly...” Twilight mutters.

Cheerilee doesn’t even try to suppress a chuckle. “So, you got an apple back this time, then?”

Twilight and Celestia share a guilty look—there’s no other word for it.

Miss Cheerilee frowns. “What happened?”

“Er...well...” Twilight begins, pawing at the floor anxiously.

The princess clears her throat—and to Cheerilee’s momentary amusement, doesn’t quite meet her eye. “Spike was...helping us.”

“Hiding in a corner and complaining that he was trying to take a nap, more like,” Twilight growls.

“I see,” Cheerilee says, in a tone of voice the Cutie Mark Crusaders had come to dread and immediately obey.

Celestia and Twilight share another anxious look, then turn helpless grins on Cheerilee.

“Well, he, er...wandered onto one of the transmission pads. Mostly by accident. I think,” Twilight finishes, a bit lamely.

Cheerilee raises a hoof to her temple, sighing. It was going to be one of those days, she could tell—the kind which happened more and more to you the closer you were to Twilight Sparkle.

So...basically every day, for me, then?

Thank heavens.

But while internally she was smiling contentedly, outwardly she groaned—that was her role in this little pantomime. “Please tell me he’s not an orange now...”

“Well, uh, no—that’s why I’m happy, you see? The flux was really low. Uh. Good thing, huh?” Twilight adds, her grin growing desperate.

“Oh, totally.”

Celestia sniffs. “The recurring citrus distortion seems to have presented itself in a different sort of way.”

Her horn lights, and a gentle wind pushes the lingering remnants of the orange-fresh smog out a nearby window, where it could dissipate to “pleasantly subtle” instead of “oh heavens, my nose is falling off my face why is this happening”.

“So he’s fine, then?”

One of Twilight’s ears flaps nervously.. “Er, I assume so. There’s no reason for him not to be.” The princess gives her a bit of a look, and Twilight frowns. “What? There’s not.”

Cheerilee sighs. “You don’t know?”

“Look, there’s no reason he would be hurt. Probably. We, uh...well, uh, the problem is that we don’t, er...we don’t know where he is,” Twilight says, cringing a little. “The test array wasn’t really meant for something larger than an orange. Apple. Aheh.”

“Very stable, though,” Celestia says to Twilight, and they nod to each other thoughtfully as if this made up for everything else.

Cheerilee frowns. “Until it exploded.”

“Explode is such an imprecise word,” Twilight says, wincing at Cheerilee’s tone of voice. “I think it would be more correct to say that there was a localized increase of entropy in the particle stream regulator array, which caused catastrophic, er, self-disassembly...”

She trailed off, the weakness of her voice arguably measurable by the height of Cheerilee’s ever-raising eyebrow.

“It was working fine until Spike stepped into it and blew it up,” Twilight mutters petulantly, after a moment. “I know what went wrong, though. I think.”

The princess closes her eyes and holds herself up haughtily. “I have found that things working properly does not always mean they aren’t going to explode. It is the cost of progress and the risk rational inquiry imposes upon us that the realms of unexplored knowledge are sometimes likewise unpredictable.”

Beside her, Twilight nods vigorously.

Deep breaths, Cheerilee...focus.

You don’t want to start laughing, do you? They’ll never take you seriously again!

“How far are we talking, here?” Cheerilee asks, giving her very special somepony a very special withering glare. “Canterlot? The moon?”

“Just the environs of Ponyville, I should think,” Celestia says, fluffing her wings. “There was only so much power in the crystal batteries. I can find him—”

Cheerilee waves a hoof. “Let me take care of finding Spike. You two need to put my library back the way you found it.”

Twilight raises a hoof. “Uh—”

“Twilight, it might do to make sure that all our magical charge has been expended, since the containment has been compromised,” Celestia interrupts, before Twilight does something foolish like question Cheerilee’s absolute claim on their home at this particular moment.

The unicorn’s ears prick up, dislodging the goggles so they fall back down over her eyes—not that she appears to notice. Business Twilight was back. “Ah! You’re right, you’re right...we do want there to be a library to clean, after all...”

With that, she turns on the spot and vanishes back into her laboratory at what Cheerilee is a little disturbed to note is a slightly higher speed than is necessarily comforting given what she’d just said.

A sound makes Cheerilee turn. Celestia is sitting, calmly, eyes closed, the golden glow of her power wrapped over the spilled displays and overturned bookcases. For a few minutes, the library floor is a blizzard of pages and books forcing Cheerilee to duck out of the way more than once. But before she knows it, her home is as good as new—everything in its place, safe and sound. There’s even a neat little pile of dust near the door.

The princess opens her eyes, giving Cheerilee an amused little grin—she’d even managed to clean herself and tidy her mane a bit. “How did I do?”

Cheerilee gives her a little half-frown. “You might be accused of showing off a little.”

“Ah, I suppose so. Forgive me,” Celestia says, although with only so much contrition in her voice.

“I’ll think about it,” Cheerilee replies, before nodding to the basement. “When did she get up?”

The princess gives her an apologetic look. “I told her you’d be...annoyed.”

“That early, huh?”

“I’m afraid so. But she had a rather sudden...inspiration, and, well...” Celestia trails off, sighing happily. “We did have some success with it.”

Cheerilee rolls her eyes. “Yes, I heard.”

The princess’ eyes twinkle with amusement. “When we’ve finished salvaging things, I’ll see she gets some rest. Once the coffee’s worn off, I suspect she’ll think of bed herself.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

Something’s still sitting wrong with Cheerilee, though.

Inspiration, huh?

“Is it just me,” she asks, her tone careful, “Or is Twilight getting inspirations a lot more than she used to, now that you’ve removed that trigger in her head?”

The princess smiles what Cheerilee has come to think of as her ’I am the wise and powerful immortal princess now’ smile. “If you’re asking whether the trigger was putting a cap on more than her magic use, I think you do me a disservice. After all, it never limited what might be called her potential—just prevented her from hurting herself accidentally. Still...I feel that you make a valid observation that she might feel less...constrained, now.”

“Not so much that the trigger is gone, but that it was removed?” Cheerilee asks, raising an eyebrow.

Celestia’s smile doesn’t change. “Ponies are born free, but wheresoever they go, they bind chains about themselves...”

“...and no chain binds as much, or chafes as little as the one placed by one’s own hoof,” Cheerilee finishes. “And ponies used to tell me all my problems are just in my head as if that was supposed to be some kind of comfort.”

They sit in silence for awhile.

But there’s something that Cheerilee needs to ask. She feels like she already knows the answer, but it’s one thing to suspect and another to be t—

No. Not told by the princess.

To be corroborated by a mutual friend with some expertise.

“She’s...special, isn’t she,” Cheerilee murmurs.

Celestia gives her a puzzled little smile. “Surely I don’t need to tell you that, Cheerilee.”

“Don’t be saccharine,” Cheerilee says, frowning for a second. “After all of this—even after how mundane all this has ended up being...I can’t help but feel like...”

She trails off.

I feel like what?

Celestia’s smile fades into an even, but serious expression—but she says nothing. She’s very old, and clever—she’ll force Cheerilee to speak her mind to continue the conversation, not relying on implication. Not about something like this.

Not about Twilight.

“I feel like there’s still something I don’t...get about you two. Like...the more you two spend time together, the more you seem...”

The princess cocks her head, eyes narrowing very slightly in curiousity.

Cheerilee shrugs, hopelessly. Directness it was, then.

“The more you seem...similar,” she says, her dissatisfaction clear on her voice.

Celestia raises a curious eyebrow. “Well, she is—was—my student—”

“That’s not what I mean. I—I don’t know what I mean. Of course she’s like you, and you’ve influenced her, but...it’s something else.”

Their eyes meet, and Cheerilee knows, suddenly, that Celestia doesn’t need her to use crude things like words to explain her feelings.

She knows, too.

Cheerilee swallows. Somehow she senses something important is going on, but...words fail her.

Again.

A distressing sensation for somepony who thinks herself clever with words!

The princess blinks, once, and seems to hesitate before speaking. That is in and of itself unusual enough to make Cheerilee pay extra attention, but in these circumstances...

“Would it comfort you to hear that I can’t explain it, either?” Celestia says, very quietly. Reverently, almost, as if they are sharing something sacred.

Cheerilee thinks about this for a minute. “Not..not really, actually.”

“I’ve been thinking about it myself, more and more—as I talk to my sister, to you, to everypony, and of course as I work with her...” The princess rises, striding closer to Cheerilee, and gives her significant glance.

“Imagine...imagine you’re a poet. Not a stretch, I think, of course, but now also imagine you have more than a few centuries of perfecting your art to your name. You may as well know every poem ever written by heart, and understand them all in a deep and personal way as well as being very, very good at understanding how they move and influence other ponies. You know everything there is to know about style, meter, creating imagery—everything about the mechanics and the theory. Indeed, you’re considered an expert on poetry just by virtue of having been around for most of the development of poetry through history, rather than because you make a specific study of it as your primary focus in life.

“Then you take a student—not that you haven’t before, or that they weren’t great poets that you’re proud to have known. But this student is different. She’s always been very, very good; naturally gifted, intelligent, thoughtful, hard-working, and dedicated. But the more you teach her, the more it seems that you’re not really telling her things she doesn’t already know—more that you seem to just be reminding her of something that had momentarily slipped her mind. When you are reciting poems to her, now and again she completes them for you, because it was just obvious to her how they were going to go. She grasps almost everything instantly and is voracious in pursuing understanding—but more importantly, as she gets older she begins teaching you. She makes connections you wouldn’t have ever seen, but are just...obvious to her. Apparent. She creates new poetry in different forms as easy as breathing—labor that would take others months or years take her days at most. And she can explain it all, from the bottom up, fundamentally. It’s not just a fluke. She’s more than a genius or a prodigy, she’s...”

Cheerilee has nothing to say to that, really; she just watches as the princess shakes her head, staring out into the middle distance lost in thought.

The princess turns to her, and smiles. “She’s...special.”

Divine wisdom of the heavens, huh? Yeah, right.

“Oh, well, that explains everything, then.”

The princess doesn’t rise to this playful jab, though, instead, growing solemn again. “I know it doesn’t.”

In the quiet of that moment, the lazy buzz of Ponyville waking up to a sunny Saturday morning manages to fill the room.

Cheerilee looks up. “What does that mean?”

A familiar disquiet lurks in her mind—but now she has somepony to talk to who really understands the situation, and can help her. The difference that makes is...big.

She would have been afraid, before. Afraid that Twilight would outgrow her, or lose sight of her—and truth be told, there was still a little of that buzzing around in her head. But that was the least part of her, the part that still doubted her own right to be happy and loved. And now it was being drowned out by the rest of her, which was...

Curious? Excited?

And from Celestia’s cunning little smile in return...she knows she’s not alone in feeling that way.

“I don’t know yet,” the princess says—and maybe it was just because she was getting to know Celestia a little better than the average pony, but Cheerilee is certain that most wouldn’t catch the subtle, very youthful note of eagerness in the princess’ voice.

Cheerilee smiles. “Well, then. We’ll just have to see for ourselves, hmm?”

“It certainly promises to be interesting,” Celestia says. She straightens up, but gives Cheerilee a knowing little look. “Speaking of, I catch hints of court politics now and again, since I’m in Canterlot once in a while, so between you and I let it be known that the magical world in general is wondering why I haven’t named her Arch-Mage yet...”

“Arch-M—!” Cheerilee begins to exclaim, but the princess waves a hoof dismissively.

“That’s a little ways off in the future, I think,” Celestia says, frowning a touch irritably. “I perhaps phrased that poorly. Let me say instead: the magical world in general is wondering why I haven’t named my famous and decorated student Arch-Mage yet. And as we’ve discussed in some detail lately, there is no such pony, nor do any of us want there to be. There is, however, a very talented young mare named Twilight Sparkle of Ponyville, who is still a bit too young to be taken seriously in that cloak no matter her accomplishments. You see?”

“I...think I do, yeah,” Cheerilee says, frowning at the way the world was in general. “But why are you telling me?”

Celestia just smiles, rather playfully. “Mostly so that later, when you’re complaining to me that you’re getting too old to be attending state dinners and Galas and things, I can say I warned you when you still had time to escape before it was too late.”

Cheerilee freezes—the implication is clear.

Not that she liked the idea of being somepony’s default “plus one”, but—

Was that—did she—

She’s disturbed by a hoof falling gently on her shoulder. Celestia was looking down at her with a gentle, calming smile. Something about that smile, about her eyes, about everything, radiated a gentle but unshakable sense that everything was going to be alright.

Bathing in the morning sunlight, Celestia...exists.

It’s all she has to do.

She may be more like us than we think, but...she’s still the princess.

“She will need you,” the Princess of the Sun says—no, prophesies. “She will need the strength of somepony whose hooves are planted firmly in the earth, and will not back down for anypony...”

“...not even myself,” Cheerilee whispers.

Lips press gently against her forehead—warm, loving, and almost unbearably overwhelming in their honest affection. “Well said.”

The words tickle Cheerilee’s ears, and she shivers, blinking—

Celestia, her friend, sits before her with what for Her Royal Highness is a lazy smile plastered across her face.

There’s a part of Cheerilee that wants to worship this wonderful creature—bend down, prostrate herself, beg for even a scrap of attention. But she’s not about to start listening to that sort of nonsense now. She doesn’t back down for anypony.

“No fair using...divine...shiny...magic powers on me,” she says, waving a hoof irritably. “I’m still mad at you for not putting Twilight back to bed. And for trying to blow up my house, for that matter.”

Celestia puts a hoof to her chest, as if terribly offended. “Try? The only thing I tried to do was teleport an apple across a room.”

“That’s what Twi always says, and I don’t take it from her, either,” Cheerilee says, with a snort. She turns and begins heading out the front door into the wide world beyond. “I’ll go find Spike. I’d consider it a favor if the Library was still here when I got back. Visible, too—”

“That’s a little unfair of you, Cheerilee. I thought I had explained that yesterday’s little mishap was not something we could have predicted. It only happened because of—”

“Yes, yes, I know, vector conflict, aetherical flow ratios, I don’t know,” Cheerilee says, not turning around. “The point was I was in the bath at the time.”

“Cheerilee?”

Celestia’s voice is not...playful, anymore.

Cheerilee stops and turns, suddenly worried she’d upset the princess—

“Thank you,” Celestia says, simply, through a thin smile.

They hold their gaze for a moment.

What is she thanking me for? She was the one doing all the—

Divine...magic stuff.

Which is only part of who she is.

“Just don’t blow up my house today, and we’ll call it even,” Cheerilee says, with a smile.

By the time Cheerilee steps out into the bright sunlit morning, Celestia is already downstairs helping Twilight do something loud. Banging and weird ringing sounds flow out through the little windows at the very base of the tree, filling the plaza with their uphill battle against the wreckage of Twilight’s teleporter.

Cheerilee takes a big, deep breath. It’s already been a big day, and she hasn’t even had her coffee yet—

“Miss Cheerilee?”

Her eyes open to take in the speaker. As always, it takes some time, and craning of the neck.

“Mac,” she says, smiling. “How are you?”

“Oh, Ah’m...well...” The huge farmer reaches up and scratches behind his ear nervously. “To be perfectly honest, Ah’m here because Spike sort of...appeared...above our table this mornin’ while we were eatin’ breakfast. Not that he ain’t welcome, o’course, but...”

Cheerilee smiles, brightly. “Oh, thank goodness. I was about to go looking for him, actually—is he alright?” A memory prods her, and because there is a part of her that really enjoys how Ponyville is these days, she gives him a sly look and asks, “He’s not an orange, is he?”

“What? Er...no,” Mac says, peering at her warily for a moment before something occurs to him. “Although now that ya mention it, he did smell like—ya know, it still smells like—”

“Don’t worry too much about that, it’s fine,” Cheerilee says, hurriedly. “He’s not hurt or anything?”

“Nah, but our table is. He’s not such a little guy like he was anymore. AJ gave him somethin’ to eat and now he’s out with Bloom and the girls, Ah expect. Ah was actually hoping somepony here might be able to tell me...uh, why he—”

“There was only a point zero three flux variance,” Cheerilee reports, crisply.

Mac stares at her for a moment.

“Is that...good?” he asks.

Behind Cheerilee, something very heavy and metal falls to the hard stone floor of the basement, clattering and smashing at some length. Mac stares at the tiny windows at the base of the tree in alarm, but Cheerilee just smiles.

“Apparently,” she says, once the sound stops, rolling her eyes.

Mac grins. “Ah was gettin’ scared there for a second. Ah know you an’ miss Twilight are good an’ close, but you know how unicorns are. Always gotta keep their hooves on the ground or they start gettin’...weird.”

“Oh, there’s nothing stopping that, I think,” Cheerilee says, raising an eyebrow. “Still...I consider myself lucky to have somepony who’ll remind me where my hooves have to be, now and again.”

Mac opens his mouth to say something, but pauses. His eyes move back and forth as if actually re-reading what he was about to say in midair to make sure it was the sort of thing he wanted to say, now, at this moment, to Cheerilee, specifically.

She smiles, waiting on him.

Eventually Mac just nods. “Ah’m glad Ah was a help, hon—uh, Cheerilee.”

That should sting her—that thoughtless reminder that they are still, deep down, connected. It should yank on her heart, make her ache, and fret, and worry...

But no. It’s just something that needs...time. Like a lot of things, between a lot of ponies.

He’s looking at her warily, expecting her to be upset.

Cheerilee sighs, putting a hoof on his huge shoulder. She smiles broadly when he neither shies from it, nor tries to lean into it as if it’s more than it is.

We’re getting there, Mac.

“It was a little rough there for a while,” she says, somewhat shocked not to be struck dead by the vengeful gods of understatement. She looks up at him, smiling. “But on the whole...I think things are really starting to sort themselves out. I think I’m going to be alright.”

And as if summoned to balance out her sudden surge of optimism, the basement explodes again.

She feels Mac’s shoulder tense under her hoof, but she just waits, smiling and blinking. A huge gout of red smoke that smells strongly of chili peppers floats past, stinging her eyes.

After a moment, Twilight’s voice carries up from the basement. “We’re okay! Er, mostly.”

Cheerilee sighs, and lets herself surrender to Mac’s suddenly disbelieving look.

“Pretty good, anyways,” she says.