Celestia

The party continued long after the carriage left, bearing Cadance and Shining Armor away to their bridal suite. Over the next few hours the music softened from the energetic rhythms that made DJ-Pon3 famous to slow songs about love. They were the classics, the ones to which everypony knew the words. Celestia watched from the edge of the celebration and smiled at the sight of her little ponies swaying together to the romantic rhythms. She quietly left the garden for the throne room where the marriage ceremony had taken place. The hall, now empty except for the remnants of confetti and fallen flower petals, brought a melancholy tinge to the smile on her face. By the time she reached the tucked away alcove she was seeking, the smile had completely faded. Celestia pulled back the curtain with a gentle tug from her mind and looked up into the terror filled eyes of a stone dragonequus.

Discord, still imprisoned in stone, had been relocated from the garden to this secluded portion of the throne room. "I trust you enjoyed watching the wedding, old fiend," Celestia said, the loathing in her voice was completely undisguised.

"I thoroughly enjoyed both of them, my dear." Discord's lilting voice appeared inside the monarch's mind directly as vocalizing was both impossible in his current predicament and unnecessary for communicating with a creature as magically sensitive as an alicorn.

"Of course you would," Celestia growled. Her own horn still showed the burns from where the Changeling Queen had bested her. "The repairs will take months and we still have no idea how many ponies were injured in that thing's attack. Exactly the sort of festivities I would expect you revel in."

"My, my...getting knocked onto your rump certainly has gotten you into a foul mood tonight. Maybe you should send your little sister over. She is far more polite, even if she was upset that you stuck her with guarding me all day."

"I can't believe I agreed to this in the first place. If it wasn't for Luna you would have spent tonight in the garden."

"Well, she understands a thing or two about confinement, what it might mean to an old man to watch his daughters' weddings. Why do you think that might that be?"

Celestia glared silently at the statue, her flattened ears showing that his words had struck hard and wounded her. Missing the hidden plural and the implications thereof Celestia replied, "Goodnight Uncle, I've had enough of your games for tonight. You'll be moved back to your usual spot in the morning." Stopping after turning around, her tone changed to a gentler one. "You really should thank Luna, you know. She did this for you." She drew the curtain closed.

Celestia may have been walking at her usual serene pace, but in truth, she fled.

Twilight

Twilight woke up pleasantly late but dehydrated and sore. Stretching, she went over her mental checklist of muscles, noting which ones twinged from overwork and which didn't. "I don't think I've ever danced that much before," she thought to herself while scanning through her memories of the various birthdays, cutecenaras, and the events she'd cataloged as 'Pinky-Pie fill in the blank' parties.. "Yep, we have a winner," she said out loud while pulling her mildly abused body out of warm, soft bed.

Stepping carefully so as to avoid where she thought Spike's basket should be she turned to head to the bathroom for a nice, hot shower. Her plans were brought up short by the distinct lack of stairs and the presence of an unaccounted-for wall. Rubbing her bruised snout and levering up her eyelids she remembered where she was: her old room in the palace. With a put-upon sigh, she turned around and headed to where the bathroom actually was.

Half an hour later Twilight, feeling much more equine, trotted her way to the "private" dining hall that the princesses used when not entertaining hundreds of nobles. The table was still longer than most houses back in Ponyville and seated thirty ponies at a time. Seated at the far end of the board was her mentor, Princess Celestia, along with a couple of dozen relatively close relatives and friends who stayed the night at the castle. "Good morning, your Highness," he greeted brightly. Turning towards the Ponyville contingent she continued with an enthusiastic, "Hi girls!"

In reply she received a cacophonous mixture of greetings.

"Good morning to you, my dear pupil."

"Howdy!"

"HiaTwilightIhadthebesttimeev erlastnightdidn'tyouitwassoawesome!"

"Fabulous morning, Twilight!"

"G'm'rn'ng."

"Ughhhh, why so loud?"

Scanning the table while she sat she noticed a few absences. She asked her mentor "Will Lu- Princess Luna be joining us this morning?

As if on cue and accompanied by a smirk from the white alicorn, three fillies, a baby dragon, and the ancient and immortal goddess of the night careened around the corner. Thick woolen socks covered their hooves and feet as they slipped and slid across the polished marble floors in an alarming collection of high velocity limbs. Priceless works of art escaped destruction by the barest of margins as the four held their low-friction race.

Scootaloo's tiny wings were buzzing ferociously as she led the pack. She was followed by Spike jetting backwards with the sharp point of his tail jutting in his direction of travel and trailing an eyebrow-raising tongue of flame that appeared to be supplying his propulsion. Sweetie Belle was also traveling backwards but at a much slower pace as her horn sparked erratically. Apple Bloom's limbs were windmilling furiously as she tried to catch up with her friends through sheer stubbornness. Luna deliberately brought up the rear of the pack. Her gangly legs effortlessly kept her up with the smaller engines of destruction as she allowed the slowest of them to just barely beat her to the dining room.

Luckily the ratio of noble to friend at this informal breakfast was skewed strongly towards the friend end of the scale and there were more rolled eyes than looks of shock. Unfazed by this entrance, Twilight scooped up the high-velocity orange pegasus before she actually collided with the table or the guests. With a glint of mischief Twilight placed the hyperactive youth in the seat next to the nearly comatose Rainbow Dash. Rarity performed a similar trick to secure her sister and Applejack bent to capture her sibling in her hooves with the accuracy of a league-topping goalie. Unfortunately, this left Spike without a gentle means of stopping and his collision with a centuries old tapestry was quite spectacularly flammable. Luna, being the world's expert in 'sock racing,' she was able to generally control her own trajectory and came to a stop with a pirouette and a grass-eating grin.

"I won, I won! Didjasee Dash? Didjasee? Dash? Dash? Dash!"

Rainbow Dash replied by lifting her head off of her plate and squinting at the painfully noisy orange and purple blob seated next to her. After ten seconds of having her sleep burned away by the radiant smile of her number one fan Dash croaked out, "Yeah. Good job squirt. Keep it up." Her head then returned to the plate with a hollow sounding 'clonk.'

Meanwhile, the burning tapestry was put out before a significant amount of smoke could accumulate and Spike was removed from the former work of art. Celestia addressed her sister. "So, it looks like you five had a good time together."

"It was most verily so my sister! Many games were played! I was rescued from the clutches of a vile dragon and then rescued again by said dragon!"

"Volume, Luna." Celestia reminded with a slight furrow in her brow.

"Oh yes. Better?" At a nod from her sister she continued. "I do understand why our niece agreed to foal-sit Twi- Miss Sparkle. It is enormously rewarding."

"And you, my little ponies, did you enjoy staying the night with Princess Luna?"

"Verily!" The three replied in the Traditional Canterlot Voice.

Rainbow Dash fell out of her seat sputtering and flailing. Rarity's left eye twitched in anticipation of hundreds of future headaches. Applejack face-hoofed while wondering how far away from the farm house the CMC headquarters could be safely relocated.

Luna

After breakfast, the Elements of harmony, with the Cutie Mark Crusaders in tow, gathered their luggage and left to catch their train back to Ponyville. Luna retreated to her private chambers and watched them leave from her balcony. She felt a stab of loneliness as she watched them happily leave for their homes. "Tush, tush." she chided. "You just spent nearly a week with hundreds of guests, the element bearers, their younger charges, and dearest Twilight." She paused and revised her thoughts internally. "My sister's prize student and thrice over hero of the realm, Miss Sparkle."

She continued speaking to herself, "Then why am I still lonely? She thought, "When I hunger for food I eat and I no longer hunger. When I desire companionship I have hundreds who wish to meet me. And yet I hunger all the more. What kind of perverse starvation is upon me?" She sighed as the last of the fillies she supervised last night were lost to view as the crowd of bustling ponies swallowed them. "Fie."

She shook herself, trying to shed her melancholic ruminations, and then moved to exit her chambers. There was much that needed doing so she began the long walk down to the main throne room. While she walked, she contemplated the damage the changelings' attack had caused. While she didn't have her abacus with her, she had a head for numbers and was able to quickly develop an estimate for the cost of repairs. The scale of the number she calculated was terrifying so she re-did her estimation and the number stubbornly remained huge.

"If we only cover the cost of rebuilding public property we might be able to manage it," she mused out-loud. "But it was an act of war, not a natural disaster," she reminded herself. Long established statutes held the Crown liable for any damages that were the result of foreign aggression, the changeling invasion fit that description very well. "If Itax the nobles and they will squeal like offended swine," she said to herself. She didn't notice the guardspony desperately trying not to laugh at the description. "If I tax the townsfolk the guilds will raise their prices for everyone." She dismissed the thought of taxing the farmers out of hoof. Most earth ponies didn't own the land they farmed and the rent they paid was already too high in Luna's mind. Darkly, she wondered if the current system of nobility had developed because of her sister's negligence or her incompetence.

"That is not true and you know it." Luna said out loud while shaking the errant thought out of her head. A distant guardspony, overhearing the outburst, silently shook his head. "It is that she uses a different calculus than yourself and you know that, she reminded herself." She tried to imagine what the feudal system would look like through her sister's eyes. Her sister was always focused on people, not systems. She estimated that the noble houses would provide a stable network for her sister's social interaction. It would matter less that you outlived everyone if there was always a Duke of Canterlot and that he was always a prat. "Maybe Celestia's nobility fulfilled some purpose," Luna admitted to herself as she thought about how united the three pony tribes were. The nobility certainly cared more about titles than wings or horns; the entire lot of them were a slightly inbred tapestry of second-cousins.

Luna sighed. She knew she had neither the patience nor aptitude for such intrigues and chose to apply her legal and political power very differently. She had resumed her political duties after celebrating Nightmare night in Ponyville and it wasn't long after she re-opened the Night's Court until it had developed a reputation as the "Commoner's Court." She ruffled her feathers in pride as she remembered the scathing editorials the newspapers had printed about her rulings. "If the owners wanted to be treated with 'proper respect' then they knew where to go," she thought while smiling. Some of the nobles were appalled by the thought that rock-farmers, dray-ponies, or ponies of even less savory professions deserved the same respect and treatment under the law. She had made sure to have the letters from those ponies framed and hung in her office.

She put an end to her musings as she entered Celestia's throne room. She was immediately greeted by a dozen members of the palace's custodial staff that were awaiting her. "Ah, more shadow dwellers," she smiled at the thought. "They clean our dishes, do our laundry, and repair our garderobes...um, toilets," she mentally corrected. "They do all this while being invisible to the courtiers and diplomats. Many of them even keep the same hours as myself, more used to seeing by the moon than the sun. These are my ponies."

The foremare, a dun pony with a mass of white foam for a cutie mark, approached Luna and knelt, "Your Highness. I am honored and surprised to have been told that you would be directly supervising our work today."

"Rise, Bubbles. I am sorry to say that you were misinformed." The foremare looked worried at this, "I will be working with you today."

The humble ponies fell to confused mutterings. Luna used just the smallest fraction of The Voice to regain their focus, "There is a statue that needs to be moved back to the garden." Once she had their full attention she continued, "It is...fragile and of great import to me and my sister. I will be primarily concerned for its care and relocation but I would appreciate your assistance in making sure the path is clear so that I do not damage the statue nor any of the several doorways it will need to pass through. This explanation, doth it clarify matters sufficiently?"

The cleaning staff all nodded in the affirmative and were obviously much more comfortable now that the situation was framed in such a way that it was compatible with their notions of nobility,

"Good," Luna told the group. With that out of the way, she pulled a white kerchief from under her wing and tied it so that her mane was held back from her face and out of the way. "Now, we need to get everything cleaned up before I can move the statue. Somepony please pass me a broom and we will begin." Luna smiled inwardly as she destroyed yet another part of the mystique the nobility had accrued during her millennium of imprisonment.

Discord

Discord could feel the myriads of souls teeming across the skin of the world. He perceived them directly, without the need of eyes or any other organs, which was convenient as he did not currently possess a body in any functional sense. Without eyes to get in the way of spiritual perception, he saw them each as a unique mote of light. To him, they brought to mind the image of fleas infesting a dying animal, his sister.

He remembered her as she was, before this infestation, and missed her dearly. He remembered her beauty, unmatched by anything that had existed back then. He remembered her love of dancing and of creating art simply to create something beautiful and new. Inevitably, this caused him to remember her sacrifice. She gave up her body so that there would be somewhere for "here" to be. At first it wasn't so bad, she could still dance and she used her red-hot blood to sculpt the mountains and valleys of this world. He remembered when she used to birth entire mountain ranges in a day only to erase them the next, just to have the room to try something new. But then the usurpers arose and clapped her in chains. Now her skin was thick, cold, and covered with life.

Each soul-light was unique to the individual, and one that stood out among the others was heading in his direction. Unlike the mere wisps of the swarming mortals Luna's soul burned with a blue-white radiance that eclipsed the lesser spirits around her. He had been waiting for her and forced himself to greet her amicably. "Good morning Luna, are you up early or late today?"

"Late, but 'tis no hardship."

While the alicorn spoke out loud from habit, it was not her voice that Discord heard but the thoughts guiding her speech. As he dipped into her mind to perceive her intended speech, he noticed her self-image. She had her ethereal main bound back in a kerchief, was wearing an apron, and was covered in dust and dirt. "God-Empress Celestia has you...sweeping up?" he sputtered in honest outrage.

"Yes, my evil sister has stripped me of my title and lands and I am reduced to a mere chamber-maid," she gasped melodramatically.

Discord saw that on the surface she was just having fun with the role-playing but underneath that light humor he could sense forbidden pleasure at needling her pompous sister. "If you release me I can be your god-sire and sew you a gown of dewdrops and golden sunbeams."

"Not casting yourself as the brave knight in this ballad, Discord? What's wrong?"

"The redeemed monsters and ugly knights always die in those tales. I find them depressing."

Luna's joking mood blew away in the face of his reply. "The truth is that I volunteered for this service and have enjoyed myself greatly for the entire duration."

Discord could see that this was true but not the whole story. It felt like there was some sort of ulterior motive hidden within her answer but it wasn't near enough to the surface of her mind for his to read it. "I have to admit that I'm a little surprised to see that it is you here to collect me and not a squad of guards armed with hammers and chisels. Considering the mood little Celly was in last night, I'd have thought she was going to try to turn me into gravel."

"We all know how much good that would do," Luna sarcastically replied. "No, it is just time to take you back to your place in the garden."

Discord sent a sigh over his connection to Luna. "Must we?" he asked.

"Well, I shan't be leaving you in the throne room to add colorful commentary to everything."

"Fine, I can see why your sister doesn't want me here, but why the garden? I can't see the flowers or the sky nor smell them. I can't even feel the sun warming me."

At this Luna paused and Discord could see her mind working on the question. He enjoyed watching the alicorn actually think for a change. The colors and textures on her soul shifted so much more rapidly than the dreary mortals she surrounded herself with. "The world has become so dreary and dull," he thought to himself. "There is barely anything left within it that could actually challenge a god." He felt that the usurpers had become so comfortable in their position that they have forgotten how to actually try at something. That was why watching Chrysalis challenge and defeat Celestia was so delicious; Celestia could have crushed the bug-queen but simply forgot how to do so.

"I...don't know why." Luna finally replied, bringing Discord's focus back to the present. "Perhaps so that no one will ever forget what you are and what you have done."

"Schoolfillies gawping at my hideous face, frightened by the lists of my misdeeds? I am a trophy." he said flatly. "She displays me like she displays this palace, a gaudy testament to her absolute power. I'd rather be in a cellar." Discord colored his words with a touch of petulance but made sure that the hint of despair would be detectable. "When she banished you to the moon, she at least let you keep your privacy and dignity. Me? I'm a side-show attraction."

A troubled look crossed Luna's face. Discord could hear her warning herself against his silvered tongue but he could also feel the stirrings of sympathetic shame within her. "True, he is dangerous but he is also a person. He's an immortal like Celestia and I," he heard her think. "Maybe there is a way to both protect the realm from him and yet let him retain some shred of dignity."

"You might be right," she eventually replied, worry still creasing her face. "But my sister and I will decide this together, in harmony." She nodded to herself as she pronounced this, mostly for her own reassurance.

Discord desperately wished for his eyes back, simply to have the ability to roll them.

Later that day workponies came and loaded him onto a cart. After hours of careful work they had moved him into position, which was to his delight, within the royal library. "In every change there is an opportunity," the captive god thought to himself.