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3588 20.9 KB 182
3588 20.9 KB 182
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01 - It's Time
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>/Birth of love/.
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>/Miracles intertwined/.
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>A quilt of rosy light fell upon the mess of an office well-worn, countless columns of patient parchment lathered in pink all stacked high on an ebony desktop.
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>The smell of fresh ink drifted gently within errant tufts of conditioned air. The office, hallowed as it was, often found itself mistaken for the printing room of a news outlet by those not privy to the castle’s floor plan.
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>In truth, it may as well have been such a room. Most publications based their articles off of every minute detail that dared venture beyond its ornate entrance.
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>Beyond the pressing and lifting of pen on paper and the tender grasp of magic willing it so, only the humming of ancient hymns broke the absolute silence - the “do not disturb” sign hung outside had been unusually effective at curtailing wandering advisors and aristocrats that day.
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>That, or perhaps the guard detail had been particularly stone-wallish. Either way, the shell-white princess basked within the comfort of sweet solitude.
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>Seated on her plush rug, Celestia’s eyes wearily combed the tower of remaining paperwork, and then affixed themselves to the gentle glow of the window to her left.
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>Sunset was eight minutes overdue. Despite her vast experience with a post-Gala workload, she firmly believed that if she pushed it, she would be through with the banality by the end of the day this time.
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>Evidently, youthful naivety was one among many things preserved by her immortality.
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>With a swooning sigh, she laid her pen once more to rest beside the mountain of parchment and rose to her hooves.
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>The day had gone on long enough.
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>A quick turn and a dutiful gait brought her to the vestibule leading to her balcony. The double doors parted under her influence, a rush of winter wind breaking against her silky fur.
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>Her practiced, narrow gait stopped just before the gilded railings, and she set her sights languidly - reverently - upon her beloved Canterlot.
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>The hustle and bustle of a weekend night played out in full, blissfully unaware of her watchful eye.
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>Even there, hundreds of meters above and removed from the central plaza, she could discern individual ponies going about their lives; strolling to and from storefronts, galavanting about with friends, smiling and laughing and cavorting without a care in the world.
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>Some would call it habit, the grin that supplanted her exhaustion, but to label it as such was a gross underestimation at best.
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>She did /so/ love this little bit of the day, after all.
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>Her eyes fluttered shut as she stood tall, one hoof raised against her golden peytral.
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>The lightless void behind her eyelids lasted only a moment. Two pinpricks of light, vertically aligned with one another, began to glitter in the dark.
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>Focus steadied by a millenia of repetition, her horn shimmered to life, its gleaming aura reaching out across blackened tides innumerable.
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>The tendril split in two, each twining and curling around the binary lights that now strobed in joint tempo under her caress.
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>With a tightening grip, she steeled herself for a duty never meant to be borne alone.
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>And yet, in a solemn defiance centuries aged, she began her great turning.
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>The lights flared, pinpricks no more - one a soothing glow, the other a raging pyre.
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>It was slow, at first, all those years ago. In those distant days, she struggled to urge them along, but now, they went largely without protest.
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>A crescendo of mana grinding against aether rose over the rushing wind, a cosmic symphony tuned to her whims.
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>In moments, the heavenly bodies supplanted one another, and her firm hold withdrew all at once.
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>She opened her eyes and beheld the night.
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>Stars and constellations underscored one another ad infinitum as they stretched beyond the farthest reaches of light.
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>There was no rhyme or reason to their placement, of course. Even then, she simply couldn’t bring herself to entreat the expanse into performance.
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>Not for herself, anyhow.
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>The breath hidden within her lungs took its leave at last, furrowed by the newly lulled breeze the moment it escaped from her parted lips.
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>Her gaze fell solely on the moon’s scarred surface, pensive eyes scanning every crack and crater as they had every night for an uncountable stretch of time.
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>The shadowy sigil of her greatest failure, a seal of her own making, stared back.
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>Her chest tightened.
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“Your night is as beautiful as ever, Luna.”
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>The moon, ever vigilant, afforded no reply.
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>Celestia snorted joylessly.
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“I fear that, after all these years apart, I’m finally beginning to sound like a broken record. I just wish I knew you could hear me.”
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>She sighed, hesitant to re-tread that sob-strewn line of thinking once more.
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“It’s not much longer now, is it? Seventeen more years… the eleventh hour is upon us at last.”
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>A smile, a /genuine/ smile, pulled at her lips. She reared her head as she turned to face the mountaintop that sat above her castle, high above the clouds.
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“Do you remember when we first awoke?” she asked. “Cast down upon the peak, like tears from Caelum. No memory to speak of; not even our names. We only knew that we were sisters.”
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>She chuckled.
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“The wondrous adventures that followed… beloved memories, all.”
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>She paused for a moment, her smile having wavered.
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“I long for those days. In dreams, in wakeful stupor, even in duty, my mind returns to when we ran through fields of starry dew and played tag high above the firmament.
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“…But here we are, the past immutable. My inattention to your plight is final, as is your reaction, no matter how much I yearn for second chances. The only thing we can do now is move forward, whatever that may look like.”
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>Her eyes returned to the moon, its tender gleaming seemingly stronger.
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“If you’d grace me with your friendship once more, I’d like to show you just how much our home has changed,” she offered, a spark in her eyes. “Perhaps, if you can forgive this mare her indulgences, I can begin by showing you how much baking and pastries have progressed in the last nine centuries!”
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>A yawn overtook her, maw widening to make room for a blissful exhale. Sharp though Celestia’s mind still was, the onerous doings and dealings of the day had left her lithe form begging for its scheduled rest.
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“I’m afraid today’s taken more of a toll on me than I had anticipated,” she regrettably admitted. “I apologize for my brevity, but there's still something I planned on doing before I drift off for the night.”
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>She planted her hooves, her wings spread to their full length.
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“Goodnight, Lulu. I’ll see you soon.”
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>Keen to outpace her exhaustion, Celestia sprang forth into the lively breeze, powerful wings lifting her as casually as one might lift a pen from its rest on a table.
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>Against the current, she climbed ever higher, her fur and hair slick with moisture as she emerged from a rolling duvet of clouds.
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>Waves of dew rolled from her neck on down as she picked up speed, a generous shiver expelling whatever remained of the unwanted encroachment of her warmth.
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>Every beat of her wings brought her closer to the crown of her kingdom, slopes of driven snow contouring the mountain’s nearly inhospitable terminus.
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>At last, her hooves carved into uneven ground, momentum from her flight slowing into a steady trot.
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>Flecks of snow were upon her like dust as the high winds whipped away, but a quick wave of her horn shielded her from the frozen onslaught, her warmth radiating beyond her immediate person.
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>Eventually, her path evened out and began a smooth decline down into an alabaster basin, surrounded on all sides by jagged cairns that seemed to touch the very sky above.
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>Ribbons of iridescence danced back and forth with patches of shadow, the interplay between the two not unlike the striations of light that breaches the surface of the ocean.
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>The further she descended, the less the wind reached her, culminating in an otherworldly stillness as she reached the bottom.
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>Though the dull roar overhead continued on, its fervor was no more than a whisper, light settling into a reverent glow.
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>At the center of the clearing, the snow gave a wide berth to verdant greenery, flowers blooming in striking color without even the slightest adherence to spring.
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>Laid atop one of the few patches of ordinary grass was a simple tasseled blanket, older than most of Canterlot, its corners pulled taut to make room for two. In just under two decades’ time, it would be occupied.
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>Celestia approached, her hoofsteps uncharacteristically timid as she surveyed her most closely guarded project.
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>She swept away light dustings of snow that had trespassed through her chosen perimeter, content that the weather hadn’t been too much of a bother.
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>There was still so much more to do regarding the lack of fanfare present, but she was content to wait until the hour drew nearer.
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>Well and truly tired, she stopped just shy of the perimeter again, heady with memory.
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>A weary smile curled her lips.
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>Before she could turn to leave, though, a compulsion to stay announced its presence.
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>Ringing, sullen ringing, cut through what remained of the wind.
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>No, not ringing…
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>Crying.
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>Young, to boot; /very/ young. Only a newborn’s wails would curl in on themselves so aggressively.
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>Celestia’s ears perked up as she raced to discern the mewling’s origin, shelving all obvious questions for a less critical period of time.
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>Within only a few weak sobs, she ascertained its location - an outcropping of snow, cleaved neatly into the ascending slope to shield the babe from the elements.
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>Celestia raced over and came to a screeching halt only inches away. Without hesitation, she reached into the makeshift shelter, her magic coiling delicately around the bundle of coarse blankets that swaddled the infant.
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>She sat on her haunches and leveled it against her sweltering breast, wings already unfurled in a tight embrace as she set it down gently within her hooves.
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>Her roaring disquietude settled, but only just so. Its cries were still hoarse, weakened by an untold stretch of isolation, of abandonment; it’s a wonder she was able to hear it at all, even in the relative silence.
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“Shhhh,” she cooed, pressing it more firmly into her winter tuft. “It’s alright now, little one. Sh, sh, sh, shhhh…”
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>The hole that had been left in its textile cocoon for its face was turned haphazardly into her chest, obscuring the colt’s features. A simple twist of her hooves, smooth and steady, brought her face to face with the object of her worry.
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>Celestia, by all accounts, was hardly a stranger to children. In the boundless stretch of time since her rule first began, parents often beckoned their colts and fillies gingerly along to meet the princesses whenever they could.
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>In those first days, most were shy beyond measure, their apprehensive button-eyes peeking out at her from behind their mother or father’s legs. As the centuries unfolded, nervousness turned to excitement, and eventually, even chicks and cubs of all races joined their ranks.
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>But never, never in her years…
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>Never had she beheld anything quite like the feeble tot that held her gaze so resolutely, in spite of its waterworks.
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>Its face was flat and furless, not a snout in sight; only a nose, identical to that of the ancient denizens of Mon’Keigh Isle apart from the triangular protrusion that held its nostrils a small distance away from all else.
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>Its mouth contorted as it held back a whimper, rosy cheeks squirming this way and that as it processed its immense discomfort through high-pitched grunts and frozen-over spit bubbles.
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>Beady, lavender eyes blinked back at her.
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>Bewilderment held her stock-still as moment after urgent moment passed them by, Celestia shaking herself free of inaction not long afterward.
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>Her gaze panned the surrounding hollow, but bafflingly, there were no signs to indicate even a /fleeting/ presence. No hoofprints, no traces of concentrated magic, no disturbed particulates racing through the air…
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>Nothing.
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“Where could your mother have trotted off to…?” she asked, painfully aware of its open-endedness.
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>A troubling matter, to be certain, but one to be pondered at a more appropriate time.
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>Celestia looked down at the odd creature cradled in her hoof as she stood once more, wings spreading to their full length as she cast an enchantment of warmth on its fuzzy wrappings. Its enfeebled cries began anew, alarmed by the sudden burst of motion.
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“Just hold on for me, sweetie,” she breathed with honeyed intonation, lurching skyward with a single thrust of her powerful wingbeat.
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“Everything is going to be okay.”
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—
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>The first whispers of dawn crept in through drawn curtains.
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>Spangles of cream-hued light from beyond minute gaps in the linen, dust suspended in sunbeams scattered throughout the otherwise dim exam room.
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>In their stillness, Celestia and the bipedal newborn seemed framed in resplendence as the sunshine slowly crept over the great pouf upon which they lay. She held him close as he slumbered soundly, little breaths caught in the fur of her chest.
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>It took an iron will not to fall asleep herself, the bags under her eyes beckoning their closure. She stayed with him the entire night as doctors and nurses subjected him to the full extent of their medical scrutiny, which he protested at every opportunity.
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>As far as their tests were concerned, nothing seemed to be wrong with him, but on the other side of the coin, they didn’t have any sort of baseline to compare his vitals to. When all was said and done, their countless years of medical expertise amounted to “keep him warm,” which she was more than happy to accommodate.
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>To their left, her new assistant scribbled away on her full-to-bursting clipboard, stopping occasionally to slyly steal cursory glances at the baby.
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“You may speak freely, miss Inkwell,” Celestia reassured softly, her own voice rousing her from inertia. “I can’t promise clarity in my answers, but I will try all the same.”
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>“…Are you /sure/ you aren’t romantically involved with somepony?” she asked sheepishly, straightening her glasses. “An alien, by the looks of it?”
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“That would certainly be news to me,” Celestia chuckled. “Besides, I think I’d have known if I was pregnant.”
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>Raven set her clipboard down as she turned in her seat.
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>“Just wondering, Your Highness,” Raven jested, her own laugh stifled. “It’s odd that he has your eyes, though. What do you make of that?”
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>It was true. Every speck of purple in the colt’s eyes mirrored her own; they were simply smaller.
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“I can’t even begin to venture a guess,” Celestia said. “They play well with his mane, though, don't they?”
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>Softly, she ran her bare hoof over his wild locks, a tussock on his otherwise furless figure. Aside from the erratic murmurs of dream-laden sleep, he didn’t stir.
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>Raven nodded in agreement.
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>“He’s a cutie, that’s for sure. I just wish we knew more about him.”
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“All in due time,” Celestia replied, a weary smile tugging on her lips. “Once we’re sure he’s stable, the doctors will begin tests to ascertain important aspects of his growth, like his required length of sleep and dietary needs.”
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>“Do you think we’ll ever be able to figure anything out about where he comes from?” Raven asked. “What he is?”
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>Celestia’s smile fell a bit as she held him tighter.
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“Unless whoever abandoned him comes forward, I’m afraid not. The last few search teams are still combing the base of the mountain for signs of trespass, but I wouldn’t expect anything forthcoming at this point.”
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>Raven paused for a moment, mourning the circumstance.
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>“I suppose I should make arrangements with Canterlot Orphanage, in that case. I’ll make a visit as soon as they open today.”
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>Tacit approval filled the space via Celestia’s brief hum, lost in thought as she was.
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>It was an old dance, that waltz. So many colts and fillies over her long life, all left unceremoniously in the night on palace steps, Everfree and Canterlot alike. To her - /especially/ to her - none of the wisdom in the world could ever elucidate why.
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>Of everything that she had slowly become accustomed to over the years, though, a small part of her was glad that it was just as heartbreaking as the first time.
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>“Would you like me to comb over what you have scheduled today?” Raven chimed in.
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>Celestia blinked away her lethargy and nodded, train of thought thoroughly derailed.
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“Please. A refresher would be wonderful, thank you.”
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>Raven smiled as she flattened her clipboard out to the first page once more.
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>“Of course. Let’s see… You’re meeting with Counselor Brighthoof and his constituents around eight this morning to discuss the royal budget, followed by…”
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>Celestia was, by all accounts, an excellent listener.
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>Attentive. Considerate.
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>The memory of an elephant, many would claim.
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>And yet, as Raven dutifully recounted a schedule packed tight with genuinely interesting matters to attend to, she found her focus wavering.
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>Not mindlessly, either; no, that sort of conscious disrespect was far below a mare of her stature.
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>Her eyes were pulled away, downward, by hushed murmurs and sleepy fidgeting.
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>The baby, freshly awoken, held tiny fistfuls of Celestia’s tuft in his delicate little hands as he pushed his face away from her chest.
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>He blinked away what was left of his dream, one eye after another, and held her gaze as he began to quietly babble.
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>Celestia’s tired smile overtook her entire face, rejuvenated; it was all she could do not to double over in sudden joy.
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>As if in response, he raised his arms, fingers outstretched as he reached for her face.
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>“…And from there, you’ll head to Canterlot Prep to give your speech to the graduating class. Thankfully, it’s right next to city hall, so meeting with the Department of-”
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“Raven.”
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>Torn from her recitation, Raven lowered her clipboard and quickly found herself fawning over what was playing out in front of her.
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>Held a hair’s breadth away from Celestia’s nose, the baby had begun to play with her snout, tugging this way and that as the resultant expressions made him cackle and squeal in delight, a radiant smile on his lips.
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>Across from him, the princess sat rigid, breathless in mirth.
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>To her, his eyes held the world.
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>And, at the very roots of her fathomless soul, something stirred - a fickle desire she had long thought extinguished.
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>Primal. /Undeniable/.
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“…Raven?” she called out, barely above a whisper.
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>“Yes, Princess?”
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“…Postpone today’s agenda,” Celestia breathed as she finally deigned to rip her eyes away from the child.
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>Raven, recently elevated to her station, froze.
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>“…I’m sorry?”
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“Most likely the next few weeks, as well.”
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>“Y-Your Majesty, I-”
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“The High Council can deliberate in my stead for the time being. I know they’ve been itching to prove themselves again for a while now.”
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>“Of course, but what’re you…”
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>Raven cut herself off, wide-eyed as the realization finally took hold.
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>Tender silence overtook them as she looked back and forth between the two of them.
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>“Are you…?”
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>Celestia beamed.
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“I am. Ixnay your trip to the orphanage, as well, if you don’t mind.”
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>“Understood,” she sputtered weakly. “I’ll, um… I'll summon the council.”
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“Oh, I can’t thank you enough, Raven,” Celestia sighed, her decorum slipping a tad as she returned her attention to the playful child. “Truly.”
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>Stupefied, the ill-prepared aide slid out of her seat, clipboard in tow as she once again found her legs.
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>A hair’s breadth from pushing the door open, she stopped herself, turning around after a moment of consideration.
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>“Why now, Princess?” she asked carefully.
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>Celestia ruminated for a short while, smile never once wavering.
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“I ascribed it to whimsy, at first,” she began. “Youthful exuberance coming back with a vengeance, perhaps. But I find that far too shallow a descriptor.”
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“All my life, a number of things have stayed my hoof. Fear, then duty, and eventually…”
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>Her expression fell as a painful memory clawed at her heart.
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“So, from the periphery, I watched, living vicariously through my friends as they reared their own young. I even founded the orphanage so that ponies like myself - albeit with far more time on their hooves - wouldn’t be left longing for their hearts’ desire.
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“Throughout the ages, that alone has been more than enough to fulfill me. But now, I hold a miracle in my hooves, one that looks upon me with a love that topples my heart entire, and though I’ve known him for only a night, I would do anything to ensure he grows up knowing the same affection.”
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>Celestia locked eyes with Raven.
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“I have no proper reasoning for you, Raven. Nothing that would stand firm against logical judgement, anyhow. I just… /know/.”
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>Raven chuckled, her understanding a foregone conclusion.
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>“Do you know what you’re gonna name him?”
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>Celestia lifted her son up to her eye level, pretending to mull over what she had already pondered upon and decided centuries ago.
by PKAnon
by PKAnon
by PKAnon
by PKAnon
by PKAnon