Twilight was willing to admit, she was a bit off-kilter and more than a little sleep-deprived. Yesterday evening, after the day’s usual sort of shenanigans that regularly happened in Ponyville, she’d suddenly sprouted wings, and she hadn’t quite managed to regain her equilibrium since then. Sure, she’d tried to get some sleep after getting shuffled onto a train to Canterlot, but she hadn’t quite managed it, what with everypony asking her question after question, and she hadn’t quite been willing to tell them all to be quiet for a moment so that she could think.
Ever since then, she’d been pushed from one thing to another—getting fitted for a crown that she’d probably only wear to fancy events, among other things—and she was still wondering if maybe she’d tripped and hit her head, and this was all some sort of ridiculous fever dream. She really didn’t feel much like an alicorn princess at just this moment, and that seemed like the sort of thing that would change… well, something. In spite of the wings stuck to her back like a pair of fluffy cicadas, Twilight still just felt like an ordinary unicorn.
Which was fine, she supposed. Well, it was a little disappointing, if she were being honest with herself. Really, who hadn’t imagined being an alicorn princess when they were foals? Realizing that alicorns were really just normal ponies was a bit of a hit to her worldview, and she was still adjusting. Worse, she was surrounded by ponies who were very much on the other side of the masquerade, and she didn’t need to study friendship for as long as she had to guess that they wouldn’t appreciate having the illusion broken.
Okay, that was a lie. Before Twilight had moved to Ponyville, she absolutely would have been as blunt as possible in shattering the dreams of anypony that got between her and a quiet afternoon with a book.
Still, Twilight felt bad that everypony else was just making so big of a deal about it and she just wasn’t feeling it. Fortunately, she hadn’t yet been asked to make a speech, because she hadn’t had a single moment to plan one and she wasn’t sure if she could wing it convincingly. The basic ideas were all there in her head in the same way she’d know what to expect if it was somepony else who would be taking up a crown in the name of Equestria, but it was only about that much. She’d say that she was incredibly proud to have earned her ascension into the ranks of the Equestrian nobility and would do her best to live up to this great opportunity… or something… but all it would be is words.
Most of those things were true, of course. It really was an honor and she really would do her best to live up to the mantle, but… she hadn’t earned it, had she? She was still stuck on that. How she’d actually become an alicorn and some of the things she’d been told about the heretofore unknown feat of having created new magic…
…Well, it didn’t make a lot of sense, did it?
“We’re here, Twilight,” Princess Celestia announced, bringing Twilight out of her brief moment of reflection.
‘Here,’ as it turned out, was a large balcony overlooking the west castle courtyard where over a thousand ponies were gathered, because of course it was. Twilight very much didn’t want to disappoint her mentor, but she also very much didn’t want to go out there and make a fool of herself in front of that many ponies.
“P-princess,” Twilight stammered. “This isn’t—I don’t have a speech prepared or anything!”
“Relax, Twilight,” Princess Celestia reassured, placing a hoof on Twilight’s withers to calm her—or maybe it was to keep her from running away. “It isn’t anything to worry about. It doesn’t have to be a dissertation—in fact, I rather expect they would prefer it wasn’t. Just a few words of reassurance will do.”
Well… that didn’t sound so bad.
“And then you fly out over the crowd to finish off the day.”
Princess Celestia began to walk forward, guiding Twilight with the hoof on her withers, but Twilight took one step and then stopped dead in her tracks, not sure if she heard that quite right. “Wait, I do what now?”
“Fly out over the crowd,” Princess Celestia repeated, making it sound quite reasonable when the logical part of Twilight’s mind insisted that it was anything but. “You haven’t forgotten that you have wings now, have you? I assure you, they work perfectly fine. In fact, I’m surprised that you’ve been able to keep yourself from experimenting with them for this long.”
“But—Princess!” Twilight pleaded. “You’re missing the part where I don’t know how to fly!”
“Nonsense!” Princess Celestia beamed cheerily. “Why, it wasn’t more than ten minutes after Luna’s ascension that she was flitting all over the place and complaining about dust in the rafters. All you need to do is take a good jump off the balcony and spread your wings. Your instincts will do the rest. The worst that can happen is you freeze up and glide down, which will do just fine.”
Instincts? Twilight wasn’t entirely convinced that she had any instincts. What would they feel like? Was she supposed to have an inner-pegasus now that wanted nothing more than to take to the sky and wiggle her wings? She did have an urge to be anywhere but where she was as she was levitated out onto the balcony by the golden glow of Princess Celestia’s magic that became all but invisible as she passed into the noonday sun, but she was fairly sure that was just nerves.
Speaking of which: Crowd. Speech. Now. Twilight took all of her nervousness, uncertainty and doubt and pushed them away. Her princesshood might not have sunk in quite yet after only half a day, but she’d been the bearer of the Element of Magic and the princess’ protege for much longer than that, and that was something that she could fall back on. When something needed to get done, she’d do it and worry about the rest later.
Twilight stepped forward, took a breath and prepared to speak.
Err, what was it that Princess Celestia had said she needed to say? Right. A few words of reassurance.
Twilight drew herself up to stand proudly over the crowd, noting with some nervousness the lack of railing for just such an occasion as this and spoke, “Everything’s going to be just fine!”
Then she spread her wings and jumped off the balcony.
The entire crowd winced at the audible crunch of her body hitting the ground directly below.
The first thing the Twilight noticed when she groggily awoke was that she was in her bed at the Golden Oaks Library. She felt a palpable sense of relief at this, since it meant that all that nonsense about her ascending as an Alicorn and being crowned princess had all been just a dream.
Also, the whole jumping to her death thing. Come to think of it, that should have made it obvious that it was a dream. That was prime nightmare material—like the ones she had about showing up for class only to discover that she hadn’t been given a schedule, or standing in front of a class for a presentation only to realize that all of her notes were blank. Going through a whole coronation ceremony to celebrate her becoming an alicorn only for her wings to not work would fit right in.
Thank Celestia. It would have been mortifying had that actually happened in real life.
Twilight was happily basking in the early morning sun coming through her window and enjoying the short lie-in before her alarm when she rolled over and felt something under her. Figuring that it was a bundled-up blanket and miffed about having to move, Twilight shifted, reached around and did her level best to pull it free.
That was not what happened.
The scream she let out at having her wing nearly dislocated brought a clattering of claws and hooves scrambling up the stairs.
The soft, “Oh my,” that came from the door was distinctly Fluttershy, while the one that rushed over to her bedside and started climbing up, asking if she was okay, was, of course, Spike.
“It’s... fine,” she lied unconvincingly, wincing in pain and she tried to shift herself back into a normal position so that she could see Fluttershy, Spike and… actually, that was it; it was just them.
Twilight ignored them for just a moment while she took stock of her situation, if just to confirm that, yes—if the pain in her side wasn’t a clear enough sign—she did, in fact, have wings.
Wonderful.
Twilight couldn’t help but shrink down into the covers as she came to the conclusion that this also meant that she had taken a swan dive into the ground in front of all those ponies. She was suddenly very glad that Rainbow Dash wasn’t there at the moment; she really didn’t want to know what the flight-obsessed mare would have to say about her… performance.
Celestia, on the other hoof, she wasn’t sure if she wanted there or not. On the one hoof, she felt that she would be justified in wanting to give her a piece of her mind, but on the other… If Twilight could just find a hole to crawl into and never talk to her mentor again, that could work too.
“I’m fine... I think?” Twilight told them, only belatedly realizing that she should probably be injured. “Actually, why am I not in the hospital?” she thought out loud, then added, “Or at least Canterlot, for that matter.”
“Given how, um, public your injury was, Princess Celestia decided that it would be best if you spent your recovery somewhere that you wouldn’t be harassed,” Fluttershy informed her.
“Away from the vultures in the media, she means,” Spike added. “And you didn’t really need hospitalization, what with the whole alicorn thing.”
“What does being an Alicorn have to do with anything?” Twilight asked. “I’m still a flesh and blood pony.”
“You’re actually kind of... not,” Fluttershy admitted.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Twilight asked. A poke in the slight bit of paunch that she had on her flank assured her that she was definitely flesh and blood, and no matter how out of it she was, she would have noticed if she had been turned into something other than a pony.
“Celestia really didn’t explain it too well?” Spike said a little awkwardly, scratching at the back of his neck. “But what I got out of it was that you’re sort of like a ghost possessing yourself. Not that you died or anything! Or that you can’t die, but instead of a body supporting a soul, you’re more like a soul supporting a body.”
“Be honest, Spike. How much of that is what Celestia said and how much is from your latest comic book?”
“Fifty-fifty?” Spike said, momentarily avoiding meeting Twilight’s eyes. “But it’s a good example!”
“I’m sure it is,” Twilight said with a roll of her eyes, letting the subject go. She had other things to concern herself with right now than semantics. “So… I definitely am an alicorn, then?” she asked, directing the question at Fluttershy.
“Oh, yes,” Fluttershy confirmed, gently folding Twilight’s tender wing back up. “See for yourself.”
Twilight craned her neck to see what Fluttershy was talking about; surrounding the joint where her wing connected to her body was the glow of a strange sort of magic that she had never seen before. It was pink, like her normal magic, but more viscous, flowing out from her barrel, flowing over the surface of the joint that she’d just pulled and then back below the surface as it traveled down her wing to the tips of her feathers. The shape of it was cohesive, almost solid in a way that magic wasn’t. It was almost as if there was another her made of magic standing in the same place that she was, with only that part being slightly off or swollen.
Internally, Twilight guessed that maybe Spike’s description might have been more on the nose than she’d thought, but she wasn’t going to admit it out loud.
Gently, Twilight flexed her wing ever so slightly, just to watch the phantom image of her joint flex with it.
Weird… and not really helping the reality of the situation to sink in. It made her want to blink and squint to get it in focus, or maybe clean her glasses.
She didn’t wear glasses.
She did wear safety goggles on occasion, though. Proper PPE was important.
Where was she, again? Oh, right.
“I don’t suppose that the princess said anything about the whole…” Twilight glanced back at her wings, not sure how to describe that moment of terror when she’d leapt into the air and dropped like a sack full of hardcovers.
Spike and Fluttershy both shook their heads, though the latter did have one anecdote of her own to add.
“Not all pegasi are the strongest of fliers. I know I’m not. It’s rare, but it can happen that a pegasus is born without even the ability to get off the ground. I don’t know how being an alicorn is supposed to change things, but everything has to come from somewhere; it’s possible that if you’d been born a pegasus, you’d have been one of those ponies, and now that you’re an alicorn, one third of you is that pegasus.”
“That… makes far too much sense,” Twilight admitted.
“Or,” Spike added, lowering his voice for effect. “A demon from tartarus has stolen your alicorn powers and you’ll need the power of all the Elements of Harmony—plus the timely help of one arc-specific friend—to stop him and reclaim them just in time to prevent the secret of your powerlessness from getting out!!”
“Spike,” Twilight said with a sigh. “Thousands of ponies saw me jump off that balcony. I’m sure all of Equestria knows about it by now.”
“Oh, right,” Spike said. “It’s probably the other thing, then.”
The door to the basement of the Golden Oaks library hadn’t creaked ominously since about a week after Twilight had moved to Ponyville. There was a part of her that occasionally regretted this fact, such as situations where she was feeling dramatic, or, more often, when she would have really liked to have known that somepony was sneaking up on her.
“Hey, Twilight!” Rainbow Dash greeted from directly behind her.
Twilight jumped at the interruption, scattering what she was working on all over the floor with several heavy thuds and a metallic clatter.
“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight cried out in aggravation. “Don’t do that! Somepony could have gotten hurt!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Rainbow Dash said, dismissing Twilight’s concern. “I’m sure your—err… Twilight?”
“What is it, Rainbow?” Twilight asked with a sigh, levitating what she was working on back into order.
Rainbow Dash pointed at the large, round slabs of metal on the floor with a length of bar between them. “Were you… lifting weights?”
Twilight let out a huff not entirely out of exasperation. “Yes, Rainbow. I was lifting weights.”
“Um, good on you, I guess?” Rainbow Dash said, taking a wider look around the basement. “Is this about the—”
“No, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight interrupted. “This is not about me getting tired ten minutes into your so-called ‘flying lessons.’”
“Hey!” Rainbow Dash shouted, growing indignant. “There’s nothing wrong with my lessons! It’s tradition!”
“And flailing about, screaming myself raw after you drop me from 50,000 hooves up is tiring,” Twilight countered.
Rainbow Dash refused to dignify that with a response. “So why the weights, then?”
“I was lifting them with my magic, actually,” Twilight explained.
Rainbow Dash blinked. “Does that—”
“No—well, sort of—yes, I guess,” Twilight said, stumbling over her answer. She’d never actually heard of unicorns exercising their magic like that, but there was probably somepony out there doing it and she couldn’t see any reason that it wouldn’t work. “But it isn’t about that. I was gathering various metrics so I could characterize the effect my alicorn ascension has had on my unicorn magic.”
“I understood most of that,” Rainbow Dash said, phrasing it as a positive.
“Since becoming an alicorn, my magic has gotten stronger,” Twilight explained. “But magic and the usage of it isn’t just one thing. Being able to lift twice as much with my magic isn’t the same as being able to move what I lift twice as fast or hold it for twice as long, and that’s just one spell—not even a spell, really, but the concept translates perfectly fine to more complicated applications of magic.”
“So, you’re twice as strong?” Rainbow Dash asked.
Twilight frowned and said, “It’s complicated.”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I heard you about strength, speed and stamina and all that. I get it. But strength-wise, what have you got?”
“No, I mean it’s actually complicated,” Twilight clarified. “At first I thought I was seeing an enhancement in basic lifting strength of about a hundred and fifty percent, but that’s where things get weird.” Seeing that Rainbow Dash’s attention was wandering, Twilight decided to skip the details and get to the conclusion. “I think that my unicorn magic hasn’t changed, and it’s my alicorn magic mixing with it that’s making it more potent, but that doesn’t just happen all at once. The alicorn magic is… thicker, for lack of a better word, causing a ramping effect as it builds up—and that’s another thing; it builds up and tends to linger. Weights that I lifted for ten minutes remained aloft for several more before showing any sign of tapering off and about the same amount of time again before the effect was completely gone.”
Rainbow Dash scrunched up her face in thought. “You know, I have no idea how that would work with flying.”
Twilight pressed her lips together in consternation at the reminder of her… inadequacies. “Yes, well, it seems to work fine for the other princesses, at least in normal usage. It might mean that they would excel in long-distance flight or it might manifest entirely differently with pegasus magic. It would help if I had one of them to ask.”
“So, you think if maybe you got your stamina up, the alicorn magic would kick in after a bit of effort?” Rainbow Dash asked.
Twilight’s face twinged in an unhappy grimace. “If I actually knew what I was doing, then maybe, but I can’t even tell when or even if I’m using my pegasus magic, so I’m really not hopeful in that regard.”
“Bummer,” Rainbow Dash said, clearly let down.
“After what happened at Sweet Apple Acres, though, I’m increasingly convinced that there’s a root cause other than Fluttershy’s theory about it being in my genetics to be a weak pegasus. I mean, what are the chances?”
Rainbow Dash blinked and cocked her head in question. “What happened at Sweet Apple Acres?”
Twilight opened her mouth to answer, paused and looked away, saying, “I don’t want to talk about it. Suffice to say, I won’t be making a living bucking apples any time soon.”
Rainbow Dash continued to flap in place for a moment, then drifted down to land on her hooves as the awkwardness began to get stifling.
“So, err, what did you come down here for anyway? Just to talk?” Twilight asked, attempting to change the subject.
“Oh! Uhh—right!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “Rarity wanted to fit you for something.”
Twilight glanced at the clock, which was nearing five in the afternoon, and let out a huff. “You could have said so sooner. We could have talked on the way.”
“Ehh… yeah, but the later she gets to you, the less likely it is she’ll have time to drag me into it.”
Twilight was surprised to find the rest of her friends all in attendance at the Carousel Boutique. Curiously looking around the room, she absently apologized. “Sorry if you were expecting us earlier, Rarity. Rainbow Dash took her time in getting the message to me.”
“All accounted for,” Rarity informed her happily as she pinned a yellow frill around the neck of Pinkie Pie, who was miraculously, if not entirely convincingly playing the part of a stone statue during her fitting. There was probably a story behind that, but Twilight didn’t really want to know.
“So, what’s the occasion?” Twilight asked instead, gravitating to a less crowded part of the room, which, of course, was next to Fluttershy. Rainbow Dash, concurrently, did her part by occupying the top half of the room as usual.
Keeping an eye on Pinkie Pie as if she was worried the excitable mare would explode given a single moment of inattention, Rarity retrieved a pin from the side of her mouth and used it to point down at Spike, who was holding a scroll sealed with an impression of Celestia’s cutie mark. “If I’m not mistaken, that letter will explain better than rumors and hearsay.”
Twilight cocked an eyebrow at the roundabout method of explanation, but her attention was quickly drawn to the letter from her mentor, who she hadn’t seen or heard from since her disastrous coronation.
Halfway between eagerness and apprehension, she broke the seal on the scroll and began to read.
Thirty seconds later, neither emotion had been satisfied. “What in the world is a ‘Princess Summit’?”
Applejack, who had been reading over Twilight’s shoulder along with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, whistled and said, “Ain’t that just a fancy way of her saying, ‘We need to talk’?”
“Oh, it’s much more than that,” Rarity assured them. “As a ceremonial meeting of heads of state, we can expect at least one formal dinner, which is to say nothing of events happening on the periphery.”
“Rarity,” Twilight said, giving her a flat look. “It is literally my mentor, her sister and my old foalsitter. It might as well be a parent-teacher conference.”
“You know, that is weird,” Pinkie Pie said, then faux-whispered, “Do you ever get the impression that advancement in the ranks of our government might not be entirely based on merit?”
Twilight cringed at how close to some of her recent thoughts that actually came.
“Actually,” Rarity said to Twilight, ignoring Pinkie Pie’s random aside, as was custom. “While it is true that the purpose of this summit is to have all four of our princesses discuss issues facing Equestria, that doesn’t mean that only you four will be involved. In fact, this is an opportune time for visiting dignitaries to bring forward subjects for the summit to discuss. I have specifically heard that the duke of Maretonia will be in attendance to arrange several future events, and I expect he won’t be the only one.”
“Ah,” Twilight remarked, understanding. “Hence the dresses.”
“Hence the dresses,” Rarity confirmed, finishing up with Pinkie Pie and pulling the pinned-together assembly off of her in one piece. “Now,” Rarity said, giving Twilight a slightly wicked smile. “I believe it is your turn.”
For all that Rainbow Dash had made a fuss over it, getting fitted for a dress wasn’t actually all that big of a deal, though it was a little more trying than usual since she’d just spent all afternoon lifting weights, even if it was with magic. She thought that she’d done a fine enough job freshening up before heading out of the library, but Rarity’s version of the spell was a little more thorough.
As Twilight was fitted, the girls chatted, playfully poking fun at Twilight’s expected eventual increase in dress size due to her ascension—though there was no sign of it quite yet—and moving on to things that they would like to do in the Crystal Empire while they were there.
The answers were as one would expect, mostly revolving around seeing what their various interests were like given the difference in time and culture that the empire represented. Twilight admitted to having a desire to see what kind of otherwise lost books might be found there, though she wasn’t likely to have as much free time as her friends would.
Much to Rainbow Dash’s dismay, her delaying back at the library did her no good, as it wasn’t long before Twilight was stepping down from the stool and Rainbow Dash had to come down and sit still for her own time on it.
“Now, I realize that things haven’t exactly gone as anypony could have expected…” Rarity said, changing the subject away from Rainbow Dash’s measurements and looking at Twilight. “But alicorn features entirely aside, have you considered what you’re going to do about your position as a princess?”
Twilight’s ears flattened briefly. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Ponies here in Ponyville have been nice enough to go on mostly as always other than my getting called ‘princess’ more often than not, and I think the fact that I’ve been more reclusive than usual trying to figure things out has mostly put a damper on the flow of outsiders who just want a look or a picture, but to be honest, I still don’t feel like much of a princess, so I’ve been trying not to think about it. It isn’t like I don’t have plenty of other things to concentrate on.”
“Oh, well no wonder!” Rarity exclaimed, making Rainbow Dash recoil from a pincushion that got a little too close. “Darling, you have it backwards. Of course you won’t feel like a princess if all you do is hide out in your basement and wait for ponies to go away.”
Twilight puffed up her cheeks in a pout. “I’m not—I’ve been doing research.”
“Of course you are,” Rarity dismissed. “But what you need is a change! Something new that will shake up your routine and remind you that you are more than just a small town librarian now.” Suddenly, she gasped, almost Pinkie-Pie-like. “And I know just the perfect thing!”
“You can have my library when you pull it from my cold, dead hooves,” Twilight darkly growled.
“… Not that, then,” Rarity said, moving on quickly. “Actually, that is a thought. It wouldn’t hurt for you to have some separation between your home and official business, so why not a separate palace?”
“I don’t know if I really need a palace,” Twilight said, blushing slightly. “But… an office of sorts might not be a bad idea, I suppose.”
“Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said, earning a severe look from Rarity for moving as she talked. “You’re missing the point. Do you think Cadance is going to meet the duke of Maretonia in an office? No! It’ll be in the throne room of a towering crystal palace, surrounded by bowing ponies and tapestries whose only point is to look awesome and say how awesome she is!”
“That’s two different points,” Twilight deadpanned, but her heart wasn’t in it. “Look, I’ll… I’ll think about it, okay? Maybe I’ll feel more like being princess-y after this summit.”
Rarity wasn’t gentle in yanking Rainbow Dash back into place. “That’s all we can ask,” she said, and began to talk about brocades.
Of course, this was Twilight, so she actually did think about it in between commenting on Rainbow Dash’s idea of style and various other subjects that came and went.
Was Rarity right? Should Twilight, in essence, play up the princess angle in hopes of eventually growing into it? That sounded like something she would have ended up writing a friendship letter about just a short while ago. Well, probably not her. Twilight had always been rather blunt at times, not one to fake being something she wasn’t, which was why the idea just rubbed her the wrong way.
This wasn’t quite the same as pretending to be somepony she wasn’t in order to get something, though. She already was a princess, no matter how much she didn’t feel it. She had a responsibility now, and that did include doing things that might be out of her comfort zone, like convince people to listen to her through the power of ostentatious bric-a-brac.
Of course, it was that sort of thinking that had resulted in her faceplanting into marble, so there really wasn’t any winning for her.
Twilight did her best not to let any of her friends see her sigh. Maybe things really would be clearer after the summit.
The train ride up to the Crystal Empire was a breath of fresh air that Twilight hadn’t realized that she’d needed. She really had spent too much time in her basement as of late, which was hard to admit, as she’d been doing science. Fairly boring science consisting mostly of measuring things, admittedly, but outside of fiction and newspapers—so, fiction and fiction—that was mostly what science was.
It was good to get out and remind herself that there was a world outside of her library, though. Watching the scenery that represented ponies entire lives go by in seconds was something she hadn’t yet gotten tired of—though there was a niggling thought in the back of her head telling her that it would be so much better if she could actually fly.
“Bit for your thoughts?” Applejack asked.
“Do you think the stewards would mind if I attached myself to the top of the train car with my magic?” Twilight answered honestly, then blinked and realized what she said. “Err, no—I mean—”
Applejack snickered in mirth. “Hey now, no need to be ashamed of being honest,” she said with a wink.
Twilight scratched under her chin, thinking. “You know, that’s another thing that me being a princess has kind of messed up.”
“What’s that?” Applejack asked, and the ears of the others seated nearby also went up in interest.
Twilight waved her hoof vaguely. “Just that out of the six of us there used to be two unicorns, two pegasi and two earth ponies. Now everything is lopsided… sort of… I guess I’m still mostly unicorn anyway.”
“Yeah, well, while it does seem mighty convenient that it all worked out that way to begin with, Ah don’t think the elements chose us specifically just to meet some diversity quota.”
“Oh man, I hate when ponies do that,” Rainbow Dash griped. “It never works. I mean—news flash—if you have to consciously add it in, you’re probably not gonna do it justice anyway. You’ve got to write what you know. That’s one of the things that makes Daring Do so great; you can tell that A.K. Yearling has actually been to all those places all over the world and it shows in how she writes the ponies there.”
“Err, right,” Applejack said, having lost her train of thought.
Outside, the landscape was beginning to show signs of snow in the shadows and Twilight’s mind began to wander again.
To Twilight, ruling Equestria was just something that Celestia had always done, but it was much more difficult to reconcile Cadance out here in the frozen north ruling a nation with only Shining Armor beside her, and while Shining Armor was a leader, he wasn’t really a diplomat. He was likely learning, she supposed, but it still seemed like a daunting task.
Twilight wondered if she would be able to do it if it was her. For all that Ponyville and Canterlot were as different as night and day, it was hard to forget that the capital of Equestria was always looking over them. With not just Princess Celestia, but now Princess Luna as well being so close, there really was no likelihood that Twilight would ever have to actually find out what it would be like to rule her own nation. She certainly wasn’t going to leave all her friends behind to go beyond Equestria’s borders and find or found one any time in the near future.
Twilight glanced around to see if anypony was paying attention to her and gently knocked twice on the wooden legrest of her seat.
You couldn’t be too careful with these things.
Five minutes of sourceless anxiety later Twilight waited for a lull in the ongoing conversation and said, “You girls did bring your elements with you, right?”
“They’d better have” Rarity declared with a snap in her voice that promised repercussions to anypony who answered otherwise. “There are dresses for each of you that absolutely require those necklaces. If any of you has forgotten yours then I’ll—well, I shall be very cross and disappointed with you.”
“Easy, Rarity,” Applejack soothed. “Ah’m sure we’ve all got them in our luggage. Right girls?” There was a round of nods all around. “There, see? Nothing to worry about.”
“Well, allright,” Rarity said, mollified, then stopped for a moment to think. “Actually, Twilight, it is likely that there will be a formal greeting of some sort when we arrive at the Crystal Empire, so you should probably have your crown at hoof before then so you can wear it off the train.”
Twilight chewed her bottom lip as she considered this, and asked, “Do you mean my element, or my crown crown.”
Rarity gave this some careful thought. “I suppose that is up to you. I would normally scoff at the mere suggestion that it be anything but your crown of office, but the Element of Magic is an ancient magical artifact that is unique in all of the world, so you could make an argument that it takes precedence…
“Then again, you are here expressly in your official capacity as a princess, and this is your first such event. It might send the wrong message if you were to completely disregard that.”
That was a good point, Twilight admitted. She probably should wear her crown of office.
Hrm.
She probably shouldn’t admit that she hadn’t brought it.
“Or,” Rainbow Dash piped in. “Why not both?”
The ice in the look that Rarity gave Rainbow Dash would have lowered the temperature in the room by twenty degrees. “I will end you.”
It was late in the day when the train finally reached the sole remaining city of what was once the Crystal Empire. Farms had been started out near the edges of the area protected from the cold by the Crystal Heart and eventually they would spread the magic further and further out, but it wasn’t likely that it would ever actually merit the title of ‘empire’ again.
Twilight was going to do her best not to point that out.
Truthfully, she was exhausted from the overnight trip, but that was to be expected. The Crystal Empire was about as far from Ponyville as Appleoosa, but the roundabout route the train took through Galloping Gorge resulted in the actual travel time being nearly twice as long. At just that moment, she wouldn’t have minded skipping dinner and going straight to bed.
She was a princess now, though, so that had about as much chance of happening as she had of joining the Wonderbolts.
There was a squad of crystal pony guards waiting for them as they disembarked onto the train platform and Twilight put on her best chipper smile to greet them. No need to actually come off as unapproachable when she was really just tired.
After gathering their luggage—ninety percent of it Rarity’s—onto a cart, the seven of them were escorted down the central thoroughfare that led to the Crystal Castle, perched over the Crystal Heart like a four-legged crystal spider.
That was another thing that Twilight wasn’t going to mention.
To be fair, though, it was a very unusual design for a castle, forgoing the large central door leading to a throne room that was typical in favor of making the Crystal Heart the focus.
It made sense, then, that Cadance would use the area beneath the castle as a sort of proto-throne-room and greet ponies there, as she was evidently doing. The path down to the Crystal Heart was lined with crystal pony guards standing at attention, with Cadance and Shining Armor standing at the end. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were there as well having arrived not too long ago.
Twilight was calmly walking down the aisle of guards, Element of Magic on her head, when the trumpets started, nearly causing her to jump out of her skin.
“Her Highness, Princess Twilight Sparkle!” she was announced as she settled herself with a nervous giggle.
“Welcome, Princess, to this inaugural Princess Summit,” Princess Celestia greeted with open pride.
Twilight was about to bow and make her own greeting, but froze when she realized that she no longer needed to. She wanted to kick herself. More than a full day just sitting in a train and she hadn’t even thought to brush up on her official procedures—not that she didn’t know them from years watching Princess Celestia at court, but—
Fortunately for Twilight, Cadance was much less formal in spite of it actually being her own ceremony and ran forward to give Twilight a hug, which she automatically reciprocated. “Twilight! I’m so sorry about what happened at your coronation! Shiny and I wanted to stay at least until you woke up but we just didn’t have the time with how short-notice everything was to begin with.”
“I was fine,” she insisted, which was true enough. She had spent several days unconscious, but she’d been fine when she’d actually awoken. “How have things been going here? You must be busy planning things out for the Equestria Games.”
“It has been difficult,” Cadance agreed. “But having such a big event here will go a long way to introduce us to the rest of Equestria and help us gain some economic stability. Organizing the games is one of the reasons for this summit and why it’s being held here instead of Canterlot.”
“I see,” Twilight said and was caught glancing at Princess Celestia. “Well, hopefully I can help out.”
“Don’t worry, Twilight,” Princess Celestia said. “We have many things to discuss… but they can wait until tomorrow. You all look tired from your journey—” Somewhere behind Twilight, Rarity gasped in quiet horror. “—And I think that a good night’s rest will do you good.”
“Oh thank Celestia,” Twilight said under her breath then realized a moment later what she’d just said. “Err, I mean, thank you Princess Celestia. It has been a long trip, and I think you’re right. It’ll be a lot easier to approach things with a clear head after some sleep.”
As it so happened, given how early Twilight had turned in the night before, ‘after some sleep’ ended up being two o’clock in the morning and it didn’t really bring much in the way of a clearer head. Spike had had no trouble sleeping on the train, so Twilight didn’t know when he’d actually gone to bed.
Being as quiet as possible, Twilight inched her way out from under the covers, doing her best not to wake him. Sitting on the edge of her bed, she briefly contemplated the Element of Magic on her nightstand and the crown that she had left behind in Ponyville.
There was an interesting sort of irony in the fact that she hadn’t even blinked in becoming a Hero of Equestria, yet her second crown had been the cause of so much more hesitation.
It should really be the other way around, shouldn’t it? She, the princess’ student, had been all but groomed for the position, and if you had asked her at any moment before that thousandth Summer Sun Celebration, the idea of putting herself in danger, entering a wild, dangerous forest to seek out a slim hope of bringing back the day would have sounded ridiculous, and she certainly wouldn’t have expected to then be called on on a regular basis to handle similar issues. What place would an asocial, nerdy bookworm have in challenging a chaos god, fighting a hopeless battle against an army of changelings, or freeing the very ancient empire she was sitting in from the domination of a mad tyrant?
Yet she had done those things, and she had done them just by being herself. In hindsight, her experience with the changelings especially impressed her because she and her friends had lost. They’d failed to get the elements and use them, and it was only Shining Armor and Cadance who had saved them. And yet… and yet, when the next crisis came, there had been no more hesitation than there had been the first time that she had gone out into the unknown to save Equestria.
She couldn’t explain that.
There were plenty of possibilities, of course, but too many to nail it down. Who knows? Maybe it was just all of them.
There was the fact that with the elements, she always knew with certainty that she had the tools to succeed and all she had to do was live up to her end of the bargain.
Here and now, though, she had somehow ascended to an alicorn in a process that she still didn’t understand, and yet her alicornhood had failed her at step one.
And that step had hurt—maybe more than she knew. It wasn’t unheard of for ponies to have fears about things that they couldn’t actively remember.
Sighing, she gave it up as a bad job. All stewing over it in her head would do is make things worse—and really, how relevant were her physical qualities as an alicorn in doing the job of a princess anyway? Her coronation probably hadn’t given her the best reputation, and maybe some ponies and creatures would contest her right to her position, but the one thing she did know was that when the time came to actually do something and live up to her title, she would do everything she could. She would step up… and hopefully not jump off any more balconies.
Rather awkwardly, it was that exact moment when she decided that it would be nice to go get some fresh air. Her own room didn’t have a balcony, nor did she expect any of the rooms that her friends were staying in did. Balconies didn’t really fit the whole ‘towering crystal’ aesthetic that the castle had going on, though she knew there was at least one front and center that led straight into the throne room on the first actual floor of the castle.
Hrm.
Was it possible that there were crystal pegasi in the past, and King Sombra had gotten rid of them? It would be interesting to see if they started to show up once more outside ponies were introduced into the population.
That wasn’t important, though. Twilight stood up off the bed and crept quietly past Spike. Maybe she would find that balcony, or maybe she’d just walk the halls for a bit and stretch her legs. The halls were anything but claustrophobic, so why not?
Wandering through the Crystal Castle at night was a unique experience. The crystal walls were just barely translucent enough to give the whole place an ethereal glow that was accentuated by the moonlight coming in from large windows, reflecting and refracting to fill the space and chase away dark corners. It was refreshing, and she found herself considering ways to get more light in the library basement back home.
The quiet was nice, too, after a day in close quarters with all of her friends, though it struck her as a bit odd, too. There simply weren’t the amount of guards that she had come to expect from a castle, and the guards that she did come across weren’t crystal ponies, but Celestia’s royal guard doing random patrols. Twilight supposed that the crystal ponies were all fairly well-behaved… though maybe that description was a little too on-the-nose, considering the likely cause for the lack of defiance in the crystal ponies.
She would be very interested to see a chart of crime in the city in five years’ time, especially before and after the Equestria Games, which, as Cadance had said, would bring a lot of attention and trade to the isolated Crystal Empire.
Twilight realized that she had come across something different when she noticed two guards who weren’t patrolling, but were standing guard instead.
It wasn’t a great mystery, of course. In hindsight, it was obvious that Princess Celestia would also be put up in a guest room while she was here, it was just… strange to actually picture her in a room like any other pony.
It was stranger still to have her suddenly open the door and walk out looking tired, downtrodden and wearing a nightcap.
If it was any consolation, Princess Celestia seemed just as dumbfounded to see Twilight and spent a short amount of time blinking in stunned surprise before straightening up and putting a smile on her face. “Twilight,” she said warmly. “I didn’t expect to see you up at this time of night. Are you alright?”
“Oh—um—I’m fine, Princess,” she said, stepping back and shuffling her hooves. “I just went to bed a little early.”
“Ah,” Princess Celestia said with an understanding, if slightly melancholy smile. “If only I were so forward-thinking. Glancing down the hall, she gestured with her horn and said, “Why don’t you come walk with me? I have someplace that I need to be, and I am already late as it is.”
Twilight blinked then quickly hurried behind Princess Celestia, who had already begun to make her way off into the castle without waiting for a response, which was unlike her. What could she possibly have to do somewhere in the castle at two-thirty in the morning? Princess Celestia didn’t appear hurried, but her long strides force Twilight into a slight canter to keep up—something she hadn’t had to do since her foalhood, when no amount of mincing steps on the princess’ part could match their gaits.
The nostalgic feeling made it all the more rather jarring, then, when the princess said, “You do know that you do not need to call me ‘princess,’ don’t you?”
Twilight did know that, yes. She’d thought about it during the greeting the day before, when she had almost bowed to her as well, but… well, she supposed this was as good a time as any to say it. “I know, but it’s difficult. I don’t… really feel like much of a princess.”
Princess Celestia’s lips tightened, even as she turned down another hallway. “That’s not…” she said, and sighed. “Twilight, I don’t just mean because of your title. You—” She cut herself off when she came across a short hall ending in two large, double doors and stopped walking. The doors looked much the same as any other in the Crystal Castle, but to Princess Celestia they were clearly significant.
Princess Celestia approached the doors with an uncharacteristic wariness, as if she wasn’t sure what she would see on the other side. Twilight waited back as the princess opened the door and… nothing happened. Princess Celestia let out a breath she’d been holding, and walked inside, checking around the room to ensure that she hadn’t missed anything.
Twilight idly followed at her own pace, mirroring her mentor’s actions out of curiosity, but there was nothing special about the room that she could place. It was full of various artworks—pottery, paintings, a slightly creepy statue of a foal and so on—but they were nothing she wouldn’t have expected to see in a similar room back in Canterlot.
“Are you expecting something here to be stolen?” Twilight asked, turning back to Princess Celestia, who had seated herself in front of a large mirror.
Princess Celestia shook her head. “No, I’m hoping for the opposite, in fact.”
“Now, this I would like to hear,” said a voice from the door, which had been left open.
Both Twilight and Princess Celestia turned to discover not only Princess Luna, who had been the one to speak, but a very very tired and bedraggled Cadance, who clearly hadn’t been consulted about her presence here at this hour of the night.
“…Luna?” Princess Celestia asked, unintentionally revealing that she was not actually much better off than Cadance.
Princess Luna led Cadance into the room and they both sat, making something of a circle with Celestia and Luna. “I felt you awaken and thought to offer you some company,” Luna explained. “When you encountered Twilight in the hall, however, I knew that the time for a conversation long due had come and I gathered Princess Cadance so that we might all be involved.
“This, however,” she said, looking all around the room, settling on the mirror that Princess Celestia had seated herself in front of. “This, I know nothing about, and I would very much like to.”
Princess Celestia gazed longingly into the mirror, sighed and said, “Very well, but it is not a story that I am proud of. As you all should know, Twilight is not the first filly that I have taken as my personal student.”
“Oh, great,” Cadance muttered, raised her hoof and said, “I’ve heard this one already, can I go back to bed?”
“No,” Princess Luna immediately said.
“Drat,” Cadance cursed flatly.
Princess Celestia shook her head and continued. “Before Twilight, I had a student named Sunset Shimmer. On the surface, she was very similar to Twilight; studious, driven and eager to please.”
Twilight shifted uncomfortably and fought off a blush. That wasn’t exactly how she’d like to be described, but it wasn’t inaccurate.
“Let me guess,” Luna said, crossing her arms. “The pony that she desired validation from was you, but she never got it until she did something horrible.”
Cadance faux gasped. “How did you know?”
“It is a familiar story,” Luna deadpanned.
Princess Celestia looked hurt at Cadance’s flippancy. “Cadance? I thought—”
“Hey, I was dragged out of bed with Shiny for this,” she said. “Do I wish that things had gone differently back then so that we could have gotten along? Yes. Have I gotten over it? Also yes. Do you have an eerily repetitive problem with ponies close to you suffering from mental breakdowns because they desire your approval? So very much yes. You’re just lucky that all Twilight did was mind-control a town when she had her breakdown.”
Twilight shrank in on herself, not feeling very well represented in this conversation, which wasn’t helped by Princess Celestia suddenly looking at her like she’d never seen her before.
“Can we get on with the actual tale and how it involves this mirror? Luna asked.
“I… yes, of course,” Princess Celestia said and paused to collect herself. Twilight expected her to draw herself up and sit straighter, but if anything, her shoulders actually drooped a little.
“It may be tempting to liken Sunset Shimmer to some of my other failures, but the truth is a little more complicated than it appears on the surface.
“You see, Sunset Shimmer came to me at a low point in her life, having just lost her parents to illness. She wasn’t the first orphan that I had taken in, so when she began showing signs of being prideful, arrogant and aggressively independent as many ponies who have gone through trauma at a young age do, I believed that I understood her, and placed her in a box.”
Princess Luna gasped in horror.
“A mental box, Luna,” Princess Celestia said, covering her face with one hoof. “I mentally categorized her… incorrectly. I hadn’t understood her at all, and that was how and why I failed her.”
“Oh,” Princess Luna said. “Carry on.”
“I treated her the same as I had many of my previous orphaned students. I was strict when she acted out and allowed her free reign when she behaved. In hindsight, this was the worst thing that I could have done.
“At the time, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t get through to Sunset. Why it seemed like all that I could do was push her away. It wasn’t until I talked to Cadance after the fact that I began to understand.
“Sunset Shimmer was most of the things that she showed to the world with one exception; unlike the orphans that I had taught before, independence was a burden that she shouldered out of necessity, but wished dearly that she could throw off.
“The one role she actually needed me to take was the one thing I failed to be for her—a mother.”
There was a moment of silence before Twilight spoke up, needing to ask, “Um, princess? No offense—I mean, that’s… tragic and all—but isn’t that basically what Luna said?”
“On the contrary,” Luna said. “I find the fact that ‘orphaned foals need love’ is a new concept for my sister extremely enlightening…”
Princess Celestia grimaced, but said nothing.
“So—um—the mirror?” Twilight asked, gesturing at it.
Princess Celestia whipped her head around to look at the mirror, but was disappointed when it remained just a mirror.
“I just meant, are you going to explain it?” Twilight clarified, even more curious now.
Princess Celestia was no longer in the mood. “The mirror is a portal to another world that only opens once every thirty moons,” she explained plainly and simply. “When things got really bad between Sunset and I, she became convinced that I could make her an alicorn and demanded that I do so. When I refused and threatened to dismiss her as my student, she refused to back down, so I had the guards escort her out of the castle. She chose instead to exile herself through the mirror. Every thirty moons since then, I have stood vigil over the mirror as best I could for the three days that it remains open, hoping that she will return.”
“I… see,” Twilight said, not quite sure how to take that.
Princess Celestia cocked her head in question at Twilight’s tone. “Is there something wrong?”
“Well,” Twilight said, scratching her neck. “The thing is… she wasn’t wrong, was she?”
Princess Celestia blinked. “I’m not sure what you mean, Twilight.”
“Just… you could have made her into an alicorn, couldn’t you?” Twilight elaborated, hoping that Princess Celestia would be honest with her. “I’m not saying it would have been a good idea, but you could have.”
“Hold,” Princess Luna interrupted. “I believe that this is the conversation for which I fetched Cadance.”
Twilight wasn’t quite sure why Princess Luna felt the need to declare that until she turned to look and realized that Cadance had fallen back asleep, and from the drool coming off the corner of her mouth, had likely done so some time ago.
Princess Luna approached the sleeping princess and gave her a poke.
Cadance groaned, said, “Not now, Shiny. I have gumdrops in the morning,” and turned over.
Luna pursed her lips in consternation, then cleared her throat loudly.
Cadances’s eyes shot open, and she scrambled away from Luna, shouting “I’m up! I’m up!”
Nopony said anything.
Cadance composed herself, walked back to where she’d been and sat down with grace and poise, pretending none of that had happened.
After a few moments of awkward silence, Cadance asked, “So, where were we?”
Princess Celestia turned back to Twilight. “I don’t know why you think that I could have made Sunset Shimmer an alicorn. I am not all-powerful.”
“Then why did you lie to me?” Twilight asked.
“I never claimed—”
“You fed me some line about ‘creating new magic’ that a foal out of magic kindergarten could poke holes in,” Twilight said with a huff. “I’m insulted.”
“Is that what you told her?” Luna asked, disbelieving. “I concur. That was not your most well-thought-out move, sister.”
“Wait, so you did lie?” Cadance asked, looking to Princess Celestia for answers.
Princess Celestia closed her eyes, took a breath and let it out. She addressed her answer to Twilight. “I… did not wish to burden you with living up to a legacy that you have only the most tenuous of connections to.”
“Irony is a vengeful mare, is she not?” Luna said.
Twilight… wasn’t really sure what kind of excuse that was supposed to be. As much as she didn’t feel like a princess, becoming one should have been a sign that she was ready for more responsibility, not a reason to hide something from her. Whatever it was, she would prefer to know. “What’s going on? What legacy?” she asked.
Princess Celestia opened her mouth to speak, then looked at Princess Luna. “Am I going to be able to tell this one without being badgered with interruptions?”
“We shall see,” was Luna’s response. “You cannot make too long a story of it as there is very little we know, but I do not doubt that you will try.”
Princess Celestia shook her head and turned back to Twilight prepared in her mind what to say. She looked at Luna, pursed her lips, and continued to think. She did this several times, internally hemming and hawing before she finally gave up.
“Oh, fine,” she said with a huff, rolling her eyes. “Princess Amore was actually an alicorn, Cadance is her reincarnation and Twilight is the reincarnation of her sister.”
Twilight blinked. “That’s it?”
“As I told you when the Crystal Empire had first returned, there is very little that we actually know about it,” Princess Celestia said, keeping an eye on Luna. “What we do know is that Princess Amore’s sister left the empire and traveled south to live alone. We do not even know her name.”
“Somewhere around Ponyville, maybe?” Twilight asked slightly sarcastically.
“Yes and no,” Princess Celestia said cryptically, earning a look from Princess Luna. “She lived in what is now the Everfree forest. It was she who first discovered the Elements of Harmony, and it was her notes that led us to them.”
“Her notes?” Twilight asked. “Not her?”
Princes Celestia nodded, not needing to explain.
“I see.” Twilight was… disappointed—both in Princess Celestia and the little information she had. “So, after all this, we’re still no closer to understanding why I seem to be only one third of an alicorn.” Twilight sighed and looked up to her mentor. “I wish you’d just told me the truth in the first place. It’s not like I would go off the deep end obsessing over what some vague story of a previous life says about me.”
Princess Luna cleared her throat. “My sister seems to have—”
“I was getting there!” Princess Celestia whined, snapping at her sister. “I stopped because we were taking a moment of silence for the dead.”
The look on Luna’s face said exactly how much she cared for that excuse.
“We do know—or at least strongly suspect—why it is that your magic seems to be incomplete,” Princess Celestia told Twilight. “I had expected that the situation would have sorted itself out when you ascended. Clearly, I was wrong, and for that I apologize.”
“What situation?” Twilight asked, exasperated.
“Twilight,” Luna interrupted, gaining her attention. “What is it that makes the Everfree forest so unnatural?”
Twilight was thrown a bit by the apparent change in subject, though it was about the Everfree, so it was probably related. “Well, as it was introduced to me—” Twilight faux-gasped, and said, “‘The plants grow, animals care for themselves and the clouds move, all on their own.’”
Luna directed her sarcastic eyebrow at Twilight for that.
“…Sorry,” she said, apologizing for the dramatic recitation. “That’s how they said it at the time. I wasn’t impressed either.”
Neither Princess Luna or Princess Celestia said anything, and Twilight went over what she’d just said. “Wait, you’re not saying that the reason I don’t have any pegasus or earth pony magic is because it’s still out there?” Twilight asked incredulously.
Princess Celestia nodded solemnly. “We could tell as soon as we came across the forest that its magic was not only much like ours, but that something terrible had happened to its source. We settled there both to protect the Tree of Harmony and in hopes of someday unraveling the secrets of the Everfree.”
“The tree of what now?” Twilight asked, shoulders drooping.
“The Tree of Harmony is the source of the Elements of Harmony,” Luna explained.
Twilight looked away from the two princesses sitting across from her. “…That seems like something my friends and I should have been told about,” she said, concerned at just how many things she hadn’t known before today.
“Well… Perhaps,” Luna said, having apparently been complicit in keeping that particular secret if her posture and pawing at the ground with her hoof was any sign.”
“No, I mean we really should have been told,” Twilight insisted. “For all any of us knew, that could have been the ‘back where it all began,’ from Discord’s riddle when he took the Elements of Harmony before we could use them.”
“Ah, well, if that is the case…” Luna said, looking to Princess Celestia, since Princess Luna hadn’t been there.
Princess Celestia coughed uneasily. “Actually, what he said was ‘back where you began,” she said, giving Twilight an apologetic look.
“…Oh.”
“But you may have a point,” Princess Celestia added hastily. “It is true that there may come a day when you need to know more about the Elements of Harmony when Luna and I are not around to help you.”
“There’s more?” Twilight asked, sounding dismayed.
“Ah, no, actually,” Princess Luna admitted.
Twilight’s eye twitched, but she eventually settled down on the side of letting it go. “Well… That’s a relief,” she said and took a deep breath.
“Now,” Twilight continued with a certain edge to her voice. “Can we go back to the part where my pegasus and earth pony magic is just sitting there and you’re telling me this now, when we’re about as far as it’s possible to get from it and still nominally be in Equestria?”
It was entirely unlike her, but Twilight was actually mad at her mentor right then. “I get that you didn’t want to tell me about some alicorn I might have been in a past life—I don’t agree with it, but I understand it—but couldn’t you have at least dropped me a letter in the weeks it’s been since then so I wouldn’t have been tearing my hair out trying to figure out what was wrong with me?”
“I—” Princess Celestia was spared from having to explain herself by the loud crash of a vase shattering on the other side of the door followed by a harsh expletive and the clopping of hooves down the corridor.
In the silence that followed, Cadance snored.