-Overflow- for 24 - Autumn Reception

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: Autumn Reception
When: September 30, 6 PM
Where: The Gods' Meeting Hall
Summary: The Heavens are throwing a formal party! Old and new gods alike are invited, so put on your nicest outfits and some good dancing shoes, and come see what this shindig is all about.

Continuing from HERE!

Comments

[pure_radiantics]

Is that because you have a husband back home?

[She realizes she'd never asked Celestia anything like that - about her family back home.]

[letteropener]

[One faint snort escapes before Celestia can't hold back any more -- she has to stop right where she is to laugh, loud and hard, and unreserved enough that she sounds like an entirely different pony.]

[pure_radiantics]

Ah....

Sorry...?

[Kairi's pretty sure that Celestia's laughing, but she's not 100% positive at first, then she's REALLY laughing and Kairi relaxes into an embarrassed laugher of her own.]

[letteropener]

Oh, it's quite all right. [Celestia waves a hoof, laughter subsiding.] Though I do wonder what would give you the impression that I am married.

[pure_radiantics]

I thought that because of what you said about trying to steal me and how you wouldn't do it... or something? Like you could joke about doing it but not actually do it... for some reason?

[It seemed like the only reason Celestia would want to kidnap Kairi and yet insist she wouldn't.]

[letteropener]

And it couldn't just be from the goodness of my heart, that I would face the temptation and yet resist? [Oh, Kairi, you're precious. How did you ever get in a relationship without blushing yourself to death?]

[pure_radiantics]

Ahh... I suppose that's a possibility too...

[She smiles and rubs at her neck.]

I didn't know if that kind of thing would be expected of a... princess.

[A pony princess.]

[letteropener]

Of course not. Princesses are set on pedestals, perfect and eternal. We are different and apart from ponykind, pure and untouchable, and that is just one reason I will never have a special somepony.

[pure_radiantics]

I can never tell if you're being serious when you say things like that, because I think I know what princesses are supposed to be like but I know our worlds are different so... it's just... strange sometimes.

[letteropener]

Well, you must consider that for a very long time, I was the only one. I raised the sun each day and the moon each night, and had done so since long, long before any living pony was born. It is very difficult to think of such a pony as a pony -- more like a natural feature, like the sun itself. Always has been there, always will be.

[pure_radiantics]

Oh...

[That makes her so much older than she'd originally thought - in the sense that...]

Or like a goddess, right?

[That's what it sounds like to her. That Celestia was already basically immortal even before coming to the Far Shore.]

[letteropener]

I do not know if that is entirely fair. From everything I have seen in the Far Shore, the gods are both far less present and far less active than I ever was. Here, I am Inti, goddess of the sun, but I have yet to actually so much as nudge the sun along in the sky! Whereas in Equestria, I did that every morning.

[So more like a very physical goddess.]

[pure_radiantics]

That is pretty weird... Forrest's power is a lot like the goddess he's representing. I wonder why you can't 'nudge the sun along' like that.

[But-- Ah!! She remembers one thing!]

Didn't I see you in the sky pushing clouds one time? It's like that but more powerful, isn't it?

[letteropener]

Well, for one, the sun here doesn't actually move. For another, there are so many physical processes dependent on it that moving it around would probably be disastrous.

[So strange, and she struggles to understand how the system hasn't collapsed on itself yet.]

Weather control is something quite different, honestly. That's pure physical work. Changing the seasons is magic -- and raising the sun and moon takes something of all three pony gifts to do properly. Before Luna and I took on the jobs, it took a full six of the strongest unicorns to take on the task, and it drained them immensely... but we alicorns actually gain strength from it.

[pure_radiantics]

I don't really fully understand all of the magic parts, but I guess that makes sense for someone who's not a pony. It still sounds really cool - that you and Luna could do what it took six others to do! I knew you were powerful, but that's especially awesome.

[She does remember basic science lessons from her world, but then you throw keyblades into that and some things just stop making as much sense - that and seeing Naminé and Roxas across from herself and Sora.]

That is kind of weird, then... I wonder what the original sun goddess was supposed to do that they gave you the role for. Or one of those other sun gods either.

[letteropener]

[To the question, Celestia shrugs. She doesn't understand -- the whole notion of gods is so far from what ponykind has ever envisioned. There are no ayakashi, no prayers, nothing anything like the Far Shore in Equestria.]

Alicorns are indeed special, as I've mentioned. We have the virtues of all pony types, and we are very rare. The four alicorns in Equestria today are two more than there have been since Equestria was founded.

[pure_radiantics]

Oh wow... baby twin alicorns or something?

[That's what is sounds like to Kairi. She can't remember if Celestia explained how alicorns were... made. If they were born, or something else special determined it, the way that you were either a god or a shinki.]

[letteropener]

Princess Cadence and Princess Twilight Sparkle both earned their ascension fairly recently. [Which is, at least, half the story.]

[pure_radiantics]

[Okay so not born then. Ascended she can kind of understand - a transformation of sorts.]

So it's kind of like a hero going on a quest, but for princesses?

[If they had to 'earn it' and all.]

[letteropener]

If life itself is a quest, perhaps. Both the other princesses earned their titles by doing a deed of some note, but in both cases it was the culmination of a great deal of time and effort in simply being the sort of pony who ought to be a princess.

[pure_radiantics]

Well that's pretty cool for them! It's not the kind of thing you can consciously try to make happen, then? Like... a list of items you have to do in order to become an alicorn.

[It's kind of like becoming a hafuri, to her.]

[letteropener]

Not in the least. It was a great surprise to both of them. [Celestia can't help but chuckle, remembering the expressions on both of their faces.] Whereas my sister and I took a different path. We didn't even know our talents when we started ruling Equestria.

[pure_radiantics]

Like a fairy tale... what a surprise, you're right. More than a surprise birthday party and Christmas combined!

[ She smiles, thinking of a comparison like that that Sora would have appreciated. ]

They must be really nice ponies then for that to have happened to them, right? They're friends of yours?

[letteropener]

Cadence is my adopted niece, and Twilight Sparkle was my prize pupil.

[She can't describe them as friends. Her own position and her history make for too much of a gap between them all for the title to be genuine.]

[pure_radiantics]

[ Kairi nods. So she knows them well, then. That was kind of her point. That Celestia could be proud of them not just on principle of becoming alicorns, but also based on their history. ]

I'm happy that you have some more alicorns to return to, regardless.

[ She smiles then. It's hard to say that she hopes she can meet them, because she realizes that they could arrive as shinki, not unlike herself, and not recognize Celestia apart from being a pony. ]