Several years after their retirement from the throne of Equestria, Celestia and Luna settled down in a small cottage off one of the byways of Ponyville, which ran from the Grove of Remembrance all the way down to the stationery store on the old end of town. During their stay at Silver Shoals, they had begun to feel the itch of their capacious imaginations, which were once entirely thrall to high ceremony and heroic scenes, but which had now become idle, like two lapping skiffs on an outgoing tide. They therefore decided to take up writing; and to that end, had removed themselves from the distraction of unhampered horizons to live on the wooded hill with its small-paned paper shop, where every envelope, steno pad, and erasable ink pen bore the intoxicating whiff of new adventure.
Their successor, Twilight Sparkle, regarded the move with bemusement, in part because her occupation left her no time to go and see her former mentors, and in part because Ponyville was an old thing to her. It was only when she was there in the autumn of that same year, contemplating a pair of salt and pepper shakers over lunch at Bayard's Café, and thinking of the legend, that she recounted with delight that the princesses were in town, and set aside the hour to pay them a visit.
She passed through the market and filled a basket with the best turnips she could find for making soup, then sallied toward that part of the forest where she had heard the monarchs had made camp. The site was a little hut beneath a dewy canopy some sixty feet away from the road, at the end of a dirt pathway. There was not another house for a five-minute walk, and the trees filled the air with a sweet scent.
Inside, Twilight found the cottage in a state of shamble. There were cooking pots left on the stove and cups with dark potations scattered through all parts. In the small front gathering room there were placed two stacks of mattresses—each, she presumed, on top of a pea, where the princesses slept. A small table by the backdoor appeared to be the center of life. It was covered in pamphlets with scratched-out numbers, plates, fabric, and paintbrushes wrenched from use, and seemed to exert a hold like the sun on all the objects around it. A breeze blew in—the backdoor had been left open, and there out in the yard Twilight spied the princesses themselves.
They were shouting at each other from opposite ends of a fenced-in part of the grove. "It is your turn to pick up the leaves, Prophetess!" cried Celestia, levering a garden rake in one hoof. "Harken to the song of the wren of the hemlock—it's chatter cuts through the needles of your deception, and reminds us that it was I who went to the well-pump three days this week, to fetch us water for baths and sponges."
"Come on the raccoons," replied Luna, "and come the newts, and other creatures which steal away into dark recesses, Rogue Princess, to tell the tale of my two-fold trip to the pump, and of the many breakfasts conjured by me thereafter."
"Eggs do naught to buff the experience, Eyeless One," said Celestia.
"And naught for brains," said Luna, "of whose yours were evoked upon many scramblings."
"Perhaps," answered the older, "if you spent more reflection on your skirmishes, and not in the skillet, your combat would be much improved."
"Then let the prophetess go to the ravine," said Luna, making wings for departure, "to find a troll, or a land-wurm, with which to practice the steadiness of my falchion, and I shall leave the raking of the vegetable garden to you."
"Do as you please," said Celestia.
The two sisters waited for one another in the freckled shadow of the forest, neither making a move as leaves flitted under and around them from the high canopy, as from nowhere. At last Luna stamped the ground in a quarter turn. The leaves rustled as Celestia began to rake. Luna reared herself for take-off; but in an instant she cut her flight, and threw herself backward with a hoof thrust at Celestia.
"ARROW!" she cried with enough force to resound over the treetops.
"SHIELD!" returned Celestia, tossing the rake and throwing up her forelegs.
Luna landed in a patch of brush, and the wood was quiet and still; then, standing, both sisters pulled out and made notes on large parchment papers they each unfolded from a satchel, using pencils that they maneuvered with their teeth, and in a moment all enmity between them seemed to melt away.
It seemed judicious to Twilight, during this spell, to gain the attention of the two old princesses, who had not yet noticed her come into the yard.
"Ahem."
Celestia and Luna broke off from their scribbling and hailed her heartily, flashing big and bucky smiles.
"Well-met, Twilight Sparkle!" cried Luna. "We welcome you to the Grove of Remembrance."
"It is good to see you again, my faithful disciple," said Celestia, approaching. "I sensed your coming in a dream."
"You sensed no such thing, Sister," carped Luna, close behind. "You are thinking again of the post pony who brings Neck Collar Digest on Thursdays."
"Speech attempt with twenty-five percent chance of failure—" Celestia replied—"I did not hear you."
"ARROW!—"
"SHIELD!"
This time, more quickly. The princesses stopped and jotted something on their parchments again.
"What are you doing?" asked Twilight, without ceremony. "Why are you shouting commands at each other? Why are you dressed in burlap capes?"
"We are roleplaying in real time, Twilight Sparkle," Luna answered, brightening. "It is a most serious work."
"And very dangerous, I see," said Twilight.
"We love beauty," said Celestia, with off-hand seriousness. "And the love of beauty is a dangerous and deadly thing."
"Oh, that is a good line!" said Luna.
Celestia nodded. "I have discovered that it is good to talk to pumpkins to improve speech. Unlike ponies, they do not tire of your overtures."
"Please forgive me for saying so," said Twilight, "but I thought that you two might be in a better state of affairs. I'm glad I've found you both. Why are you out here, shouting in these woods? Why do you live in a cottage which is too small for you, and why, now, are you going around talking to pumpkins? Have you run out of money? Look, I brought turnips for you."
She set the basket on the ground and gave it a knock with her hooves, causing a bulb to roll onto the ground.
"For turnip and carrot soup. You do remember how to make that, don't you?"
Twilight stopped herself. She felt the cool air of the afternoon on her calves, and bent down to pick up the stray turnip, without something further to add.
"Do not feel bad for us, Twilight Sparkle," said Luna. "We are writers now."
"It would be worse for us, indeed," said Celestia, "to linger in Silver Shoals, whose sands are like the count of faces come and gone, and where forgotten beliefs flock like waterfowl."
"I must join you in the pumpkin patch one night, Sister," said Luna. "Please do not forget to take me along."
"I should want nothing more than for you to be writers," Twilight rejoined. "You have lived extraordinary lives. The stained windows of your palace towered above the mountains. A rill ran from your throne room down to a valley of cataracts. You have seen more of the land, and the ponies in it, than some of the folk here might see in a lifetime. Beauty must be as deadly as you say, or—"
"FALCHION!—"
"SHIELD!"
"Apologies for interrupting," said Luna as she and Celestia were at their papers again. "I thought that my sister had stopped paying attention."
"Ong musk be pupared fr anythin," said the other.
"She cannot hear you with a pencil in your teeth, Sister!"
Celestia spit it to the side and repeated, "One must be prepared for anything. Would you like me to yell it louder, Dark One?"
"Only to show a little decency to our revered guest," Luna replied, "who is making profound remarks for us."
"Of course, yes," said Celestia. "Please, do continue."
In a low voice, and after a hesitation, Twilight resumed, "It seems to me that here you are, in the mud, looking for ways to annoy each other, striking out on a life that is less noteworthy, less noble, less sanitary, even, than that of any one of the same ponies here that might admire and seek to emulate your attainments. Now, I'm very busy, but if you're willing to clean up on my advice I will block out time to help you. We will make soup, and catch up."
Twilight, in her role as High Princess, was no longer accustomed to interruptions; she picked up her turnips and motioned for Celestia and Luna to follow her into the house, she noticed, hastily.
"And you can no longer say," she added as a final argument, "that I don't have the experience to understand your decisions."
She started a trot toward the cottage, determined to listen for obedience, and not to look for it, feeling the glow of the golden existence of the woods in autumn on the sides of her ears; then she heard a great cry from behind her which sent a band of songbirds flying off a nearby branch.
"ARROW!"
Twilight whipped around. "Excuse me?"
"Did I not try to warn you," Celestia said dolefully, "about being prepared for anything?"
Twilight dropped the turnip basket. She began to heave, and clutched at her chest. "I-I can't believe this! After everything we've been through!"
"Believe it," said Luna. "And it has cost you twenty health points. You are lucky that the shot didn't roll higher. Hopefully you have learned that you must never turn your back on a prophetess, lawful evil."
"Take it back," said Twilight.
"Take what back, Twilight Sparkle?" Luna replied coolly.
Twilight sat down. "Your arrow. If you value our relationship, you'll do it."
"What's done is done," said Luna, exchanging glances with her sister. "The wind blows daggers for us royalty. What am I to do, un-dagger you?"
"You should have used 'shield'," Celestia interposed.
Twilight threw up a foreleg. "SHIELD!"
"It's too late for that now!" said Luna. "You must suffer the scorn of that cruel mistress, Neglect." She finished scribbling, then added, "But if you are desperate, I can always sell you a magic potion."
"Is potion-making really part of the skill set of a prophetess?" asked Twilight.
"Not at all," Luna replied. "I found it while crawling through some echoing caverns."
"The playscape at Saddle Pad Park," Celestia clarified after a lull. "It is not far away. I have it written down here, if you'd like to see."
"You're missing the point," said Twilight. "Luna, I would never shoot you with an arrow, even an imaginary one. Let me ask you—because now I want to know—what were you thinking when you fired it?"
"Of your welfare," Luna replied. "If you were hit, you would have learned what to do when in the company of rogues and soothsayers, such as we are. If you blocked, it would have been good experience for you, since I have such a high archery level."
"Would you then let me do something for your welfare?" asked Twilight. "Even if I made you suffer through it, as I've done for you?"
"Twilight," said Celestia, "the marble spires to which you've alluded—which you've used to give shape to the past—are only an innuendo. Waste yourself in some lanai, give up the breath of the spirit of magnificence and magnanimity, and then you will see what is best for our welfare. Let me ask—have you reflected on the qualities of a princess, lately?"
"I've had no time," Twilight replied. "My duties have made them clear, without much pondering."
"No dragon shall be too fearsome to stay the winning of the prize," said Luna, in almost a whisper.
"Yes, that's right," said Twilight. "Though it's an odd way of putting it."
"When we asked ourselves, Twilight Sparkle, how we would live like princesses all the time, and not just during commencement speeches, the vision came to us of a hut. It was only here—finding it all in modest surroundings—that we could prove to ourselves that our found nobility was something eternal, really within ourselves and not attached to calcareous traditions, or even the force of our own powers. Duty here would teach us, as it has taught you."
The trees started to billow from an afternoon gale. Carts were beginning to pass on the distant road, and Twilight thought once again of her evening flight and her intention of visiting a few other points of interest during her short time in Ponyville.
"Take these, then," she said, grabbing the turnip basket which had been left sitting on the brush. "Consider these 'love roots'. They grow very tall, like these trees, but it takes many centuries. Their fleshy taproots have properties which make them good for enchantments. They say when you taste one in a stew that you can see a dear friend at every stage of their life, but only for an instant."
Twilight felt a shiver in her legs as the sunlight began to fade into orange. "Next time I see you two we will clean up the kitchen and go on another adventure together. And it will be like we haven't been apart for very long, thanks to our special magic vegetables."
She handed the basket off to Celestia. The old mare took a turnip and held it up to the sun.
"For goodness' sake, Twilight," she said. "Sometimes a turnip is just a turnip."