Homecoming
Celestia touches down on one of the platforms high in the Canterlot palace, folding their wings into their sides and letting out a huff of air. They'd put off their responsibilities with very little warning, in order to go investigate the magical surge; And though they don't regret that decision, it does mean that the rest of that day will be even more exhausting than usual. Steeling themself, Celestia holds their head up high in preparation for holding court and strides into the palace, noting a distinct lack of security with unease.
The two guards on duty at that entrance, momentarily ago sitting down playing a game of cards, gulp nervously and bolt to their feet on either side of the door. "P-Princess!" One of them hastily salutes. Celestia wheels around, arching a brow.
"Is this what passes for discipline among the royal guard now?" The princess questions. "If I was trying to infiltrate the castle, I could have easily done so just now. The only reason you two saw me was because I was making no effort to conceal my presence. What are your names?"
"W-Wind lancer!"
"Ruby Hoof, Sir!"
"Hm." Celestia ponders. They didn't recognize the names, but that made sense; Although in theory part of the same organization, the palace guard are significantly less involved with Celestia personally compared to the Royal Companions which accompany the princess in the field. Still, that was no excuse for slacking. "Who is your superior officer?"
"General Apple Corps, sir!" Ruby hoof pipes up.
"Alright, Wind Lancer and Ruby Hoof. I'll let you off easy this one time, but if I catch you slacking on watch again I'll make sure you're on sewer detail for a week. Understood?" Celestia states, triggering nervous gulps from the two as they stand up and at attention.
"Yes, sir!" Both state in unison, and Celestia nods.
"Good." With that taken care of, Celestia continues into the throne room at a brisk pace, relieved to see that at least the throne room guards are properly standing watch.
Kneeling down before Celestia, one of the guards on duty reports. "Your majesty, General Apple Corps has been awaiting your arrival in the guest chambers. The dignitaries from Zebrica have also arrived, but have not yet petitioned for a meeting. Shall I dispatch for the general?"
Celestia nods as they take up their place on the solitary throne. "Yes, and please send my apologies for the delay. There was some unexpected business to take care of."
The guard nods, the doors shut behind him, and for a handful of minutes Celestia is left to their own devices in the throne room awaiting the general's arrival. But before long, the gates in front of them crack open, allowing the brown-toned earth pony into the throne room. Apple Corps strides to the center of the room as the gates seal shut behind him, and kneels down before the alicorn.
"Your majesty." Apple Corps states deferentially.
Celestia sighs loudly. "Don't stand on ceremony with me now, Corps, it is just the two of us. I have to deal with that enough from everypony else."
Apple Corps nods and stands up, still with a somewhat formal posture but at least dispensing with the kneeling. "Of course. I wanted to meet with you regarding the latest batch of new military reforms you are pushing through. With all due respect, I can't fathom why you're doing it now; Replacing the equipment of the entire guard alone will take up twice our annual budget. Wasn't the expansion of the Royal Legions sufficient? The Nobility are starting to ask why we need such a large standing army."
"The Nobility. Right." Celestia lets out a small sigh. Though technically one of the pillars of their rule, the nobles tended to be more a thorn in Equestria's side than anything else. Celestia had meant to do something about that, a very, very long time ago... But events had conspired against them. Celestia shakes their head to clear it from the momentary distraction that thoughts of the past had brought, and refocuses on the issue at hand. "If the nobles had their way, we'd probably still be throwing spears and holding shield walls for all our battles. I don't seem to recall those tactics being particularly effective last time the dragons lead an incursion." Celestia remarks dryly.
Apple Corps motions at a small stack of papers he had brought with him. "But many of these technologies aren't well established. I've caught sight of some of these folding claws, R&D is still having trouble making the hinge mechanism strong enough to survive impact. The continued development costs are going to cut into the guard's other duties at the current rate."
Celestia can't help but roll their eyes. By 'other duties', the general meant showboating and parades. Standing up and striding over to the window, Celestia gazes out over Equestria stretching off into the distance before turning to respond to the general. "General Apple Corps, what is the primary function of the Guard?" She asks.
Apple Corps frowns. "Well... To protect Equestria and represent its interests, I suppose."
"And do you feel that the current state of the guard is sufficient to serve that purpose?" Celestia questions.
Apple Corps looks uncertain. "Well. I can't see why not. The current state of the guard has been more than sufficient for peacekeeping and maintaining order."
Celestia shakes their head. "I'm not referring to peacekeeping or maintaining order, General. If an army was to invade Equestria, say, this very afternoon... Do you think you would be able to stop it?" The general opens his mouth to speak, but Celestia cuts him off before he can. "Mind you, I don't mean an army with antiquated tactics and weaponry like the Yaks. What if, say, the dragons lord chose to invade? Or the changelings? Equestrian intelligence informs me that they have a new queen sitting on the throne, who is far less isolationist than the previous. Or even a threat from within? Are you aware that there are presently no less than four insurrectionist groups operating within Equestria's borders?"
General Apple Corps bristles at the apparent insult to his troops, and stands up even straighter. "Princess, my soldiers are more than ready to handle any threats that might appear! We have kept vigilant watch over Equestria for generations, and will continue to do so." He states boldly.
Celestia raises a brow. "Really, general? I caught two of your soldiers playing a game of cards instead of guarding the upper passage to the palace not long ago." Celestia sighs, and their gaze softens sympathetically. "I understand you are protective of your soldiers, General. But I need you to understand me. They are not ready. The guard has become a cushy position for second sons of noble families to parade around in uniform and entertain dignitaries, not a modern fighting force. These reforms are necessary to protect Equestria."
Apple Corps gives an exasperated sigh. "With all due respect, your majesty, just what is it that you're afraid of? Equestria has been at peace for well over a century, and there is no sign of it ending."
"Nor will there be, before the inevitable conflict, I'm afraid. We cannot wait until war is already on our doorstep to begin preparing; By then it will be too late." Celestia broods, staring out at the distant horizon, and shakes their head. "Between resistance from the nobility, traditionalists in the military, and opposition from pacifist elements of society, these reforms have already taken far longer to institute than I expected. We cannot delay any longer. If I have learned one thing in my time as Princess of the Sun... It is that the calm is always followed by a storm. Always."
The general grunts in frustration, but bows his head. "...Of course, your majesty. I will begin making the necessary changes." Though begrudging, the general salutes respectfully before making for the exit.
"Oh, and General... Tell the guard to let in the Zebrican dignitaries now." Celestia calls out to the departing figure of the general and returns to her throne. General Apple Corps might have been stubborn as a mule, and a staunch traditionalist to boot, but he was also one of the only ranking military officers in Equestria who had seen actual combat; Not just a border skirmish here or there, but an entire campaign against insurrectionists in eastern Equestria. Because of that, Celestia was willing to overlook certain deficits, knowing the stallion to be a talented commander when it came down to it.
The rest of the day is filled with political niceties and fervent negotiations over trade routes running through disputed territory in southern Equestria. Though an infrastructure project to improve contact between southern and northern Equestria was underway, the desert at the far southern terminus of Equestrian territory was still an isolated enclave with spotty communication at best. Between that, and their scheduled appearance at a local school, Celestia is barely able to raise the moon in time.
Or more accurately, isn't. Two minutes late. Celestia thinks in moderate frustration, glancing at the nearby clock. The diversion to Cloudsdale that morning had made it difficult to get everything for the day done, and now they are just exhausted. Still, there is one more thing to do before they can allow themself some sleep.
Making their way to the guards headquarters, Celestia receives the day's reports- Newest updates from Equestrian Intelligence, frontier patrols, and more. Most of it is just the same as usual, though one tidbit from the Intelligence report does catch the princesses eye; Griffonian separatists apparently had a new leader. They would have to keep an eye on that.
Satisfied that none of it requires their immediate attention, Celestia signs off, and makes their way towards the royal quarters, only to be ambushed by a pale-colored unicorn with bright yellow eyes and a white mane.
"Hey, Princess! Where didja go this afternoon?" The guardspony asks them, in an obnoxiously casual tone. This was Mooncrescent, one of the youngest members of the Royal Companions, with his older brother Starblaze following just a bit behind.
Celestia turns to face the two, a slight smile tugging on their lips. Technically, the two guardsponies should really have been expelled from the guard ages ago for insubordination, but Celestia can't help but have a soft spot for ponies who treated her less like a princess and more like any other pony. "You saw the rainbow earlier today?" Celestia asks. Mooncrescent nods his head vigorously. "I felt the need to track down the pony responsible, and flew to Cloudsdale to investigate." Celestia explains.
Mooncrescent pouts. "Cloudsdale? That means you had to go through the Everfree forest! Aww, why couldn't you have taken us with you? We might've gotten to fight some timberwolves or, maybe a manticore!" He announces, far too excitedly for the discussion topic.
Celestia stifles a giggle. "I think you may have had trouble keeping up with me, considering I was flying." Celestia stretches their wings out as if to demonstrate the point.
Mooncrescent sighs and flops down onto the ground. "Oh, phooie, we never get to do anything." He bemoans. Celestia looks down at the young unicorn, still just a cadet, and raises his head to look at her.
"Don't you worry, my faithful guardspony. You will get your 'action' as you say, sooner or later." Celestia remarks, with an odd hint of melancholy in her voice. Mooncrescent frowns; Despite his relaxed posture, he was actually quite observant.
"If you say so, Princess." Mooncrescent sighs. "Well, I'm going to go back to training now. Remember to take us with you next time!" Mooncrescent waves a hoof before galloping off. Celestia watches the retreating sight of the young stallion with bemusement, before heading off towards their own quarters at long last.
"Why do you think they even keep us around?" Starblaze asks his brother, trotting along after him. "I mean, like they said, we can't exactly keep up."
Mooncrescent glances back, and shrugs. "I dunno. Maybe they just like our company?"
Celestia gently shuts the door behind them as they enter their quarters, finally alone once again. The burdens of leadership falling from their shoulders, the alicorn steps towards the open balcony, and sits down. The two guardsponies in training might be insubordinate, but Celestia can't manage to feel upset about it. After all, there was only one other pony who had ever spoken to her similarly.
Gazing up into the night sky, Celestia finds her gaze drawn once again to the moon. "Dearest sister, I know you'll be coming home soon." Celestia speaks softly. "It's been such a long time. When the time comes, I pray you can forgive me."
Celestia sits there for a long moment, feeling the cracks forming in the protective facade they had kept up for so long, before jerking their gaze away with sudden restlessness. Slamming shut the door to the balcony, the princess stalks over to the massive bed and lays down. You should rest. You'll need as much as you can get. As every day, tomorrow will bring fresh challenges, and they will face them all for the sake of Equestria. Even if their heart is somewhere else, far, far away, within a distant nighttime sky.
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What's with the they and there?
Celestia is female.
11889542
But are you sure about that?
Its an AU after all...
Who is the artist for the pic?
A most interesting premise. I’m interested to see what other changes there are in the story’s past and how this will develop. I hope Rainbow keeps in contact with Gilda in this fic (seems like a good future plot point to have a Griffin in the higher ranks of the government given that they are part of Equestria in this fic.)
Was the gaining of the Griffin lands due to military conquest or social/economic absolution I wonder?
Will any of the other mane 6 be noticed by Celestia for unusual talents?
Is Sunset still around and if so how does she fit into this AU?
Will Starlight be an insurrectionist in this timeline or caught early on?
So far we know of the zebra, yak, dragon & changelings as outside factors. Are there any others? (Like the cannon Prance, Saddle Arabia, Mount Aris, Kirin & Storm King) are there any pony nations not part of Celestia’s kingdom like the future Crystal Empire?
I look forward to future chapters.
Note: All questions in this post are rhetorical and simply a way of airing my musings.
11889581
I think you're in for a real treat if you decide to stick with it
11889608
Meep
Don't make promises I don't know if I can keep
But I'll try
11889570
I got it from derpibooru from like 2016 or something. Artists tag is listed as "Wookylee", and source links here: https://gall.dcinside.com/board/view/?id=mlp&no=177584&page=1&exception_mode=recommend
this is a Promising Start, I'll Keep an Eye on this Story to see where this goes.
11889927
Since I've gotten a few negative responses to that decision, I've made an authors note in the second chapter explaining my reasons for it but also changes I'm considering making to hopefully make it more readable. Thankyou for the feedback.
At any rate, I'm still debating between taking the nuclear option of reversing the decision altogether or just trying to run damage control on it. If anypony wants to weigh in on that... Please just check the authors note at the end of the second chapter and tell me what your opinions are. The opinions of my readers are very important!
...I just wish English had a natural-sounding gender neutral pronoun I could use. Oh well.
11889955
I mean, we use gendered pronouns to refer to inanimate objects and unsexed beings.
Also you're already calling Celestia Princess Celestia which is a decidedly gendered term.
I do have to wonder whether alicorns in this setting are hermaphrodic or unsexed.
11890002
That... is an excellent point. It would be pretty much impossible to completely avoid any gendered terminology when I consider how much of it is linked into titles. In that context it does seem pretty silly to specifically draw the line at pronouns. Phooie.
Oh english, why must thou make my job so hard?
I'll wait overnight to see if anypony else has another opinion but, I'll probably go and edit it tomorrow to reverse my prior decision. I'll just have to find other ways to make it clear through the narrative even if the language used doesn't seem to imply it.
11890027
Lol, English is a strange mutted language that is almost an ungendered language.
That said, it's often good to try something new, even if it doesn't work out in the end.
11890038
DO YOU MEAN OLD OR MODERN ENGLISH
11890027
It all simpler than it looks: the title Princess might as well be gender-neutral in-universe. Since Celestia still I assume adhere to feminine public image in this au, it might be something that she rolled with initially, and it stuck as irrevocable part of the pony society. Ponies hardly can imagine anything else other than rulership of the Princesses, hence if there for some reason a male ruler risen to power, he would be commonly known as Princess too and no one would ever bat an eye.
I believe this line of thinking can be applied to canon mlp as well, wanted to use it in my writing (and maybe will).
11889955
I think I have a third option for you. I know someone who is non-binary and uses shi/hir as hir pronouns, you can you that as a middle ground. Hope this helps
There's quite literally nothing wrong with using they/them for Celestia -- honestly I don't see the problem. If you do want to keep them ungendered but still change the pronouns, I'd recommend looking into neopronouns. There are a crapton of different interesting pronouns that can be used (even if they're uncommon) and they might even add more zest to the worldbuilding!
They is singular and plural.
Shakespeare used it as singular in his plays.
It fell out of common use as singular at same time that 'you' and 'thou' flipped between which was used in formal language and which was common language.
Oh, and on another point: In Sweden, all their rulers, regardless of gender, are called King.
don't think i've ever seen celestia potrayed as gender neutral before, what makes you think--...oh. so do alicorns have the traits of both genders as well as the three tribes?
i personally think you should go with she/her pronouns, it's less confusing for newer readers since it's never directly mentioned - if i remember correctly - that celestia's gender neutral, and as forcalor suggested you can simply wave it off as her sticking to public image.
It took a bit to get used to, but I think the whole they/them thing is fine.
Maybe use an authors note at the beginning to signify that celestia refers to themselves as they/them?
Also going back to change stuff is a bad idea because then you will just be going around in circles.
Sister, huh? Didn't you state all alicorns were gender-less?
I haven't read the actual story yet, only had a peek at the comments and the mentioned AN so far, but I've got to ask:
What exactly are alicorns in this story? Gods that are born into the world without gender identity?
Or does ascension exist in this verse? ... because that'd mean ascension wipes a fundamental part of a pony's identity and personality.
Not a pleasant prospect.
Do their bodies have no reproductive organs at all or both sets? Because if their fleshy shells posses any hormone producing naughty bits at all, I doubt it'd even be possible to live as long as Celestia and not determine a gender identity and sexual orientation of some kind for herself, however fluid and bi that might turn out. There'd always be a preference in pronoun, partners, public image, etc..
Does alicorns being gender-less have significant plot relevance, or is this just a change for the sake of making this verse feel different?
If it's the latter, stop it.
Alright, after MUCH deliberation... I have settled on sticking with they/them. The majority of people I have asked have been ok with it, and re-reading the story myself I don't really think it disrupts the flow that much. I flip flopped several times- I thought Nukestar brought up a VERY good point regarding how I am already using feminine terms for princess and sister. But at the same time, I think that might make it even more important for me to use they/them, since otherwise it would be way too easy to forget that alicorns are canonically gender neutral in this world. That WILL be a plot point at some point and I wouldn't want it to come across as random and unwarranted.
I flip flopped on this ALOT and have spent basically the entire last night debating my decision. I ultimately settled on this answer because I don't want anypony to forget this key setting detail while they read. I dearly apologize if its distracting or upsetting to any readers, I do want the story to be as legible as possible, but I believe it should be alright once you're used to it a few chapters in. And if you don't want to read a few chapters in on account of this decision, then I understand, that is entirely your decision to make. But since enough people seem to like the story and accept it as is, I've ultimately decided to stay true to my vision as much as possible.
Having said that, Celestia will still have some feminine language used to refer to them; Princess and Sister, in particular. I think these both make sense because they were female prior to their ascension to alicornhood, and it therefore makes sense their titles and relationships would reflect this. I will endeavor to find a place in the story to make this clear.
You can see from my deleted comment that I changed my mind on this, I even made a comment stating that I was going to do the other decision and started editing the story to she/her. But while I was editing I found that I didn't feel the they/them detracted from the writing substantially and that it still sounded ok, which was what ultimately triggered me to reverse my previous reversal and go back to how it already was.
Thankyou all for your understanding and input, it has been tremendously valuable to me, and I hope everypony still enjoys the story even if the decision I made ultimately wasn't what you all were hoping for. I was tremendously conflicted and really still am, no matter what choice I make it will still be a compromise to some extent.
As far as ponies who hate the decision to make them gender neutral in the first place... I'd probably advise you to stop reading, it is going to be plot relevant and it is in fact a part of the story. I would have to cut multiple entire plotlines to change that decision, and I have no intention of doing so. The rest of you, I am happy to have you along for the ride, and can't wait to show you what I have planned next.
11890634
Glad to see you have reached a decision on this.
Now it makes me wonder the lore implications.
Did Celestia and Luna experience any gender dysphoria when they were younger?
What about Cadence does she/they come to terms with their new gender or are they still struggling to adjust?
As their future groom what are Shining Armor’s views on the matter? Was he immediately accepting or did he need to take time to work out his feelings and sexuality? Or does he not know yet?
What are the public’s views on their leader’s gender identification? Is it well known, is i known but most consider them female until they think about it? Does Celestia just accept that some of their subjects misidentified their gender? Or does she consider such semantics to be too minor in their opinion to be bother correcting them?
Interesting premise. I wonder if this means Celestia is more than just flesh and blood in a metaphysical context if they are non gender. I also do enjoy a more militaristic take on the Sun Princess. Faved and followed.
11891343
Aww. I'm honored you like it, and I shall do my best to live up to your expectations!
11891171
If they manage to stick with it and get to all those plot points, I'm sure you'll be quite surprised.
11891557
Hey you made a fun fanfic starring Rainbow Dash and Celestia. I'm already sold! ^^
Why do you have that as your headcanon?
11893467
Two reasons.
The first is, based on what we see when Twilight ascends, it seems like her original body is just completely gone and she's manifested a new one entirely through magic. This kinda resembles how Divine creatures work in my own original setting, and based on that idea, I like the idea of divine creatures being beyond such base matter as having normal sexual reproduction. They are unique, inviolate entities, untouched by mortal sins, manifested solely through the exertion of a soul's magic into realspace. As higher beings they therefore differ from ordinary lifeforms in several important ways, the most significant of which being genderlessness.
You could also kind of connect it to the cathar idea of souls being genderless. So when a pony's original body dissipates, but their soul lingers on, that soul has no lingering gender and the same is true of the body it remanifests for itself to inhabit.
Makes me wonder what plans you got for Spike?