The Odd Truth About Alicorns

Twilight had just entered into the royal chamber of her teacher, Princess Celestia. She had recently received her Royal Coronation and was soon about to begin her royal duties. What they were she did not know, but she had just learnt something interesting about her position from the other royal sister, Luna.  She was going to confront her mentor about this new piece of information when she saw her target gazing out the windows.

The Sun Princess was looking out over the horizon, admiring her work for the morning. She always appreciated these quiet moments that spoke volumes about what was really important in life. She saw her student approach and greeted her. “Hello, Twilight,” she said with enthusiasm. “How do you feel about your new position as a princess?”

“Teacher, that’s what I’m here to talk to you about,” the new princess said. “I recently had a talk with Luna and found out the truth about you two.”

“And what is that?”

Twilight felt awkward trying to say it. It was something that completely changed what she thought of the rulers of Equestria, but she knew it had to be said. “Luna revealed to me that she’s not actually your sister. She says that the two of you were just friends when you first met and decided to call each other sisters when you came to Equestria.” Celestia was a bit taken aback by Twilight’s discovery about the real relationship between the two mares. Calmly, she responded to her student.

“First I must ask you a question dealing with my sister; did she tell you this because she had one too many jugs of cider?”

“Probably. She was starting to dance on tables during the Coronation After-Party and was asking if anyone would like to see her ‘moon’. Turns out that several colts lined up, but the Princess was completely serious and sent some of them to the actual moon. She teleported them back after five seconds though, so there weren’t any deaths.”

“Oh, well that’s a relief. Can’t have ponies getting killed directly by their leaders now, can we?”

“That’s not the point, Princess,” Twilight said, realizing that it would now be a bit awkward to refer to Celestia as “Princess” now that they were technically at equal status. “The thing is that she’s not actually your sister, and I wanna know what’s going on. Why is it that you said Luna was your sister, even if it wasn’t true? What’s the truth about alicornification? Where’s does Cadance fit into this, and why did you decide to make me a princess?”

Celestia saw the confusion in her student’s eyes and felt resistance to telling her the truth. She had been hiding her secret for so long and had only told a few ponies in her entire life. Twilight was in the middle of it all, and it was only right that she knew the truth sooner rather than later. “Alright Twilight, my dear student, I shall tell you the truth about your role in everything. I shall start from the beginning.” The large mare motioned over to two chairs and they both walked over to them and sat down.

“I’m sure you know the story, which Luna and I came from a faraway land and defeated Discord and became the rulers of Equestria. Well, it’s not exactly like that.” She bit her hoof and tried to figure out how to really say what she needed to say and make sense as well. “You see, I was actually the first alicorn to ever be. There wasn’t any big spell or giant magical event or even a procedure that caused this change. I was in puberty and one morning I woke up and, well, poof.” Celestia’s wings popped out as she said this. “I really didn’t know about how it had happened, but I just accepted it. Apparently everypony else in the village did as well. It was surprising at first, but they all just accepted it. What’s funny is that I never actually learned how to fly properly. Watch.” The Princess of the Sun had gotten out of her seat and started to elevate into the air. She rose slowly, just as she did during her ceremony of raising the sun, but when she actually started to flap her wings to fly around, she ended up flapping erratically, bobbing up and down and almost breaking through a window. She decided to land and not end up ruining her stained glass windows. She knew a colt that made the stained glass really quickly, taking a day at most to make the massive windows that you saw. He cost a lot though and didn’t want to have to commission him for a piece he had already done once. He actually killed a mare who had done that once. Seeing that she needed a new window, she gave him a royal pardon, leading others to fear that she would pardon him for any other crimes, leading to him losing his normal job and was officially given the position of Royal Glass Maker so he could be called on quickly to make stained glasses for big events. She hoped that someday they’d be to have enough windows to finally close up the openings in the castle. Too many birds had started making their way onto her throne and performing their unmentionable business all over her seat.

“Yeah,” Twilight said to herself, seeing the embarrassment that was her idol’s flying style. Up until now she had always wondered why she needed to be pulled by two unicorns to get around. She had thought it was for pomp and to look elegant. Right now she looked like a bird whose every bone had been broken and was hoping to be put out of her mercy.

“Anyway, I was just like this one day when I decided to try out magic since the sudden change when I noticed that I suddenly moved the sun. See, there was always a group of unicorns that controlled the sun and moon for everyone. When I suddenly moved the sun, it was about noon and I moved the sun to the point where it was night again. That actually freaked everypony out and that day was marked with riots and absolute chaos. Apparently everypony thought that the sun had become angry and decided to abandon us. I was completely freaking out about this point and it didn’t help that around the villages everypony was gathering for a mass sacrificial ritual, hoping to appease the sun. I quickly realized what I had done and in just a minute had set the son back to its original position. Glad that I stopped them just before they drank the “Punch of the Sun” they called it. I actually earned my cutie mark that day, but decided to keep my sun moving capabilities on the low, seeing that I didn’t want everypony to think it was the apocalypse again.”

Celestia stopped talking for a moment and took a drink of tea. Twilight reflected on what her teacher had told her about her past. It seemed like a very anti-climactic way to become an all-powerful creature. She wondered if there was anypony else who had become an alicorn just like her teacher. Maybe that’s what the case was with Cadance. She’d ask about that soon, but it seemed like her teacher was going to continue her story.

“After that event, I laid low in my abilities and continued to grow up in my village, doing the normal duties of a mare in the village. You know, gathering water, picking vegetables, fighting the demonic hordes spewing out of Tartarus, and making baklava.”

“What?” Twilight asked, surprised by this news.

“Oh, back then the creatures the resided in Tartarus would sometimes spew out and attack the nearby villages. All able-bodied ponies were required to train and protect their lands. They were devastating and destructive. I remember one creature the size of a small mountain that had its entire body essentially covered in metal plate and multiple tentacles. It could actually take over the minds of other creatures if you were close enough and even assume direct control over some. Another creature was this flying abomination that was composed of eyes all over its body and on tendrils. It actually fired different spells from each eye. Needless to say that when I became ruler of this land that blocking Tartarus was one of my main goals.”

“Oh, I already knew about those things from reading my history books. I just have no idea what baklava is.” Twilight didn’t read many cook books, mainly because she’d end up getting hungry and start eating anything she had in the fridge.

“Baklava is pastry bread that has multiple layers of crust and has sweets like nuts or cream in it. Really good, but messy to eat. Anyway, one summer my parents sent me to a summer camp and that’s where I met Luna. We quickly became friends after we won the archery contest and maimed the entire other cabin we were competing against. Mind you, Equestria’s games used to be a lot more brutal than today’s. Before we left, I asked her if she wanted to be an alicorn and she said yes. I didn’t know how to make her an alicorn at first and just started playing around with magic. Turns out I did something right and she grew a horn and wings. We thought that it was really neat and when we returned to our homes we found out that we actually just lived a block away from each other. It was actually pretty easy to find her since she was the only other one with both a horn and wings. Her parents had joked about how we must have had a very interesting time at camp and must have swapped body parts. I always found that joke really creepy and never hung out with them. They liked to live in a cave and always wore some creepy clothes and face paint. Even Luna knew that they were odd.”

“Hey, Princess, what about your parents?” Twilight realized that she had never actually thought about who Celestia’s parents were. After all, they must have been incredible ponies to produce the current ruler of Equestria.

“Oh.” Celestia levitated over a bottle of tea and was pouring it into her cup. She took a drink from her cup and finished it up. She sighed and was about to regale the tale about who her parents were and then decided to simply drink it from the pitcher. Obviously this was something that was difficult for her to talk about.

“Alright. I guess I should explain something first. Equestria was a pretty different place back then and harmony wasn’t always in check. Some things that seem really odd or horrible now were somewhat common back then, even if it was still taboo.” Celestia looked around and found another pitcher of tea and downed it in a couple of seconds. “Anyway, the thing about my parents is, well, I only knew my mom.” Celestia stopped talking and just looked out the window, deep in thought. “Anyway, my mom was a, um, ‘special somemare’, if you know what I mean.”

“What?” Twilight was pretty confused about what her teacher meant by what she was saying. Not only did she only know her mother somehow, but she referred to her as a ‘special somemare’, a term she didn’t know. “Would you please clarify what you mean?”

“Alright.” The great leader of Equestria looked nervous and a bit red in the face as she tried to best explain what she meant when talking about her mother. “She would receive bits for…services.”

“Oh! So she was a handymare! She knew how to repair things for other ponies!” Twilight thought her answer over and wondered why Celestia thought that would be something horrifying for her to explain. Celestia facehoofed at her student’s answer, obviously not wanting to elaborate much more about her mother and her history. It didn’t make much sense about how that explained her lack of father.

“Alright, I think I need to be completely clear about what my mother did. You see…” Celestia went over to Twilight and whispered into her ear. This was always something that Celestia always had an awkward time talking about.”

“WHAT?! Your mom was a PROSTITUTE?!”

“Professional Escort,” corrected the white mare. She may have been a bit embarrassed by her mom’s occupation, but she certainly wasn’t going to let anypony, including her own student, say anything like that about her. “But yeah, she received bits for those kinds of services. She didn’t have too many skills in life, but she was certainly pretty and flexible so…yeah.” The teacher stopped for a moment and looked at her student’s expression of shock and horror. There were reasons why she didn’t talk about her past, and this was one of them.

“I can’t believe that your mother did that! I mean, that must have been awful for you. I’m sorry that she embarrassed-“

“Twilight, I’m going to have to ask you to stop.” Celestia had developed a scornful look on her face with the things she was hearing from her student about her own mother. “My mother always managed to take good care of me and put food on the table. I won’t hear any bad things about her from you.” Celestia looked around for anything else to drink that was lying around in her chamber. It looked like she had gotten her hooves on everything already in there. She decided to use her magic to create a large pitcher filled with what looked more like water than tea. It smelled different from water though, and the teacher poured the pitcher into a tiny glass and took a quick swig, finishing it up. “Well, she actually fed me really well, actually. Always managed to keep lots on food on store.” She took another drink from her pitcher quickly, gasping after finishing the next one off. “Now that I think of it, we really lived well. I mean, REALLY well. We sorta lived in our own little mansion.” She was about to take another drink, but just stopped before drinking it up. “Great. I think my mom was actually really rich. Aw man! She wasn’t doing it because she was desperate; she did it because she made lots of money with it!” She finished off that glass and then looked at her confused student. “Want some?” she asked, pushing the pitcher closer to her.

“I’m good,” she replied. “I’m sure whatever your mother did whatever was in your best interest.”

“Heh, yeah. I’m guessing that’s why she wanted to get me into the family business. Mare, I’ve been deluded. I never saw it like that. Hay, you wanna know who my father is now?”

Twilight was a bit scared of how to answer that question. Her teacher’s face was red, but she didn’t exactly think it was from embarrassment anymore. “Um, sure?”

“Everypony in the village, that’s who.” The white alicorn took two more swigs as she thought back to this sad fact in her life. “My mom was a unicorn and apparently she saw too many clients too close together and, thanks to magic and the mare biology, ended up becoming me.” She decided to ditch the shot glass and started drinking straight from the pitcher at this point. “Eeyup, I’m the (hic) child of every colt in the village. Well, you know what they say. ‘It takes a village to raise a child’. Ha!” She tried to take another drink, but the pitcher was now empty. Twilight had decided that she shouldn’t say anything right now, afraid of how the mare might react. The drunken mare decided to lay down her head for a moment, recovering from whatever what was going on.

“Oh! Well, that’s the answer to that question. But yeah, I actually have other things to talk about.” Celestia raised her head up, trying to continue her story. “Luna and I hung out a lot more and we were really having fun trying out magic. I actually remember the very first spell we did together. It was an attempt to make a bunch of animals form a little mariachi band by making them smarter and giving them instruments. It was supposed to be something funny or something, I can’t remember. We had a goat, salamander, a lion, a bat, and an owl, and we all gave them funny hats. We actually hadn’t studied and spells at that point and just randomly cast something together. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but it’s like the animals got caught up in a whirlwind and almost looked like they got mushed together and then just flew off somewhere. After that event we really started studying magic and actually went away for a while. We left Equestria and studied in a faraway land after realizing that we couldn’t stay in that village anymore.”

“What was the big thing to make you leave?” Twilight asked.

“First things first,” the alicorn said before magically refilling her pitcher. Twilight guessed that since her teacher was much bigger, she could handle more of that heavy stuff. That or she was going to have an awful hangover soon. “Now,” she said after taking another swig, “the awkward moment that eventually inspired us to leave was when Luna’s family came over and visited us this one day at the mansion. I had invited them over for dinner with them and they came over in their best…robes or whatever they were. We were having a pretty good time and I thought things couldn’t go any better, until my mother started talking ‘business’. I couldn’t believe that she was talking about that at the dinner table with my dinner guests. My head and heart absolutely exploded when I heard…I need another drink.” Celestia poured herself another drink and drunk that, just before tossing the glass aside and downing the pitcher down. “Alright. Well, WHAT THEY BUCK?! Can’t stop your job, or what? Things get worse when they ACCEPT IT. I’m not ever through.” Twilight was seriously regretting her life choices that had led up to the conversation where she had a conversation with her teacher, idol, and leader about her mom’s sexual history. Not only that, but she had just had a stunning realization in regards to what she had said about all those colts and her mom. She was soon interrupted when her teacher started talking, or making noises that sounded like words, again.

“The worst part is when my mom comes over and tells me about taking my responsibility with the family business. I told her, something, and I and my friend stormed off, never returning after that. Hold on a moment,” was Celestia’s words before her head slammed onto the table. The two of them were silent for about five minutes before Celestia raised her head up from the table, completely in control of her composure again.

“After we left, we studied and refined our magic until we decided to Canterlot and found Discord ruling everything chaotically. We decided to use our magic to stop him and came across the Elements of Harmony during our struggle. We defeated him and were heroes to Equestria. Interestingly enough, they thought we were some super special species because of our traits and they decided to make us the rulers of Equestria. We told them that we were sisters so they wouldn’t ask us so many questions about where we had come from and just said ‘Far, far away’.  They apparently loved the mystery of us and let us be after that. It also turned out that we’d live for a very long time because of our weird genetics and magic and we also learned that the unicorns had been dispersed and Discord had been controlling the celestial bodies, so we each took our respective roles in night and day and that’s our history.” Celestia finished her story with a smile on her face, disregarding what could have been considered a breakdown.

“And what about Cadance?” Twilight brought up this important fact. Cadance was an alicorn as well and she didn’t know why. “Wait, did Cadance become an alicorn in the same way you did?!” she said, shocked at that disturbing possibility with her pegasister-in-law growing up in a life like that.

“What? No! She won a lottery contest we had several years ago called “Who Wants to Be an Alicorn” where we chose one lucky mare to become a princess. That’s all. I thought you would have heard about it that, Twilight.”

“Oh,” she said, blushing. “That…sorta makes sense. It kind of diminishes my new position, but that makes sense though.”

“Yes, well, we tried to do the same thing as well with a colt a while back as well. It…did not work out well.” Celestia looked a bit embarrassed about her past mistake. “Let’s just say that the spell doesn’t work with colts and transforms them into power mad creatures.” Twilight thought about what the mare had just said and was about to respond with her revelation when she remembered her other important question.

“Wait, this all makes sense, I guess. The one thing that still hasn’t been answered it this; why did you make me a princess?”

“Alright, I guess I should finally get down to brass tacks and explain what Luna and I had done.” She took a deep breath and decided to tell the truth. “We wanted you to become a Princess so you could legally be able to do the taxes.”

“What?” Twilight asked again, realizing that she had started to sound like a broken record.

“See, legally only the Princesses of Equestria are allowed to do the taxes and budget for Equestria. The budget is easy, but taxes are a pain. We needed somepony with enough intelligence to do the job, and you fit the bill. Also, your name really fit the motif with the three of us being named after things related to space and morning. That was a bonus.” Celestia was happy to get this off her chest. Her student was completely blank in her expression.

“So…why did you need me to solve Starswirl’s spell then?”

“Oh, we were just curious about what it would do and thought that it would be an excuse for making you a princess. The spell was a big disappointment since it didn’t actually do anything once finished. Anyway, that’s all we need you to do as a princess.” Celestia finished telling everything she had to say and hoped that her student was satisfied.

“So,” replied the stunned Twilight, “does that mean I can stay in Ponyville until you need me to do taxes?”

“Oh, sure! What kind of pony would I be to suddenly force to you move away from your friends? I’ll let you know when taxes are in and have you work on it by sending it through message. Take care!” were Celestia’s last words before finally submitting to the hangover.

“Well,” Twilight said to herself as she decided to go back to her friends, “that was interesting.”