Eternal

Many years after sending her beloved protege to Ponyville, unease sits heavily on the heart of Equestria's Sun Princess, as her relationship with Twilight Sparkle seems to have cooled despite all they've accomplished together. On the advice of her sister, Celestia sets out to investigate and resolve the lost connection with her most faithful student.

A Fanfic for My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic by device heretic, Eternal explores the bond between the Sun Princess and her Faithful Student... as well as what, exactly, both those titles truly mean.

"Luna: You're just like her. You've both turned self-sacrifice into a vanity."
 * Anthropomorphic Ponification: The Sun takes on the form of.
 * On top of this,.
 * Arc Words: "Eternal Sun" is more than just one of Celestia's titles.
 * Anchored Ship: Twilight and Celestia can't express their feelings.
 * Break the Cutie: The war with Discord left serious psychological scars on Celestia.
 * Broken Ace: Twilight is striving to become a Type 2.
 * Broken Pedestal: Celestia fears becoming this in Twilight's eyes; Princess Luna also fears breaking hers even further by revealing more of her past to Twilight and her friends.
 * Dream Weaver: Luna has this ability to some extent, as dreams are one of her domains.
 * Driving Question: What does it mean to be the "Faithful Student"?
 * Green-Eyed Monster: eventually admits they allowed the situation to deteriorate out of jealousy over.
 * Twisted around with the minor plotline of : a large part of the problem is that.
 * The Guards Must Be Crazy:
 * I Did What I Had to Do: Celestia's justification for.
 * I Hate Past Me: While viewing a vision of the past, is visibly irritated by seeing their past self being friendly with.
 * I Know Your True Name: Twilight figures out the true identity of, giving her insight on how to defeat them.
 * Also important elsewhere in the dreams, especially when ends up coming in.  Or when dealing with herself and her own identity.
 * Irony: Celestia sent Twilight to learn about and report on the nature of Friendship, yet both struggle to put those lessons into practice with each other.
 * The Sun points out another major Situational Irony:.
 * Journey to the Center of the Mind: Used to get to the heart of Celestia's problems.
 * Last-Episode New Character:
 * Magical Underpinnings of Reality: The ramifications of Celestia's role as the Sun Princess are explored.
 * The Mare Wearing the Sun Princess' Mask
 * Becoming the Mask as history unfolds. Breaking past the masks is an important theme.
 * Martyr Without a Cause:
 * Martyr Without a Cause:


 * Not So Different: Twilight and Celestia.
 * Official Couple: Fluttershy and Big Macintosh.
 * The Perfectionist: Twilight, much to Celestia's alarm.
 * Plot Parallel: Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo are having serious issues with one another due to . Eventually, Twilight comes to realize how this mirrors her own problems with Celestia.
 * Poor Communication Kills: The tragedy of miscommunication is a recurring theme.
 * Promethean Punishment:
 * Ridiculously Successful Future Self: Since Eternal is set several years after the original series, a few of the Mane Cast have hit this.
 * Secret Test: Played heartbreakingly early on, when Celestia realizes Twilight sees as one of these and is desperately trying to impress her by ensuring everything's perfect.
 * Ship Tease: A running theme early on is Celestia's growing confusion about what, exactly, Twilight means to her, and vice versa. get plenty of their own teasing later on.
 * This Is Something She's Got To Do Herself: Though fully aware of how The Power of Friendship has seen her through in the past, Twilight repeatedly wavers at the thought of getting the others involved, and eventually resolves to do this. Both Luna and Spike argue the point using this reasoning.
 * Tragic Dream: Twilight expresses her unfulfilled desires for Celestia by sinking into dreams.
 * Tragic Mistake: As Twilight eventually discovers, Celestia's tragic mistake was.
 * Wanting Is Better Than Having: While all of the Bearers achieved their dreams, one of them explictedly discovered this:.
 * Was It Really Worth It?: Celestia asked herself this after banishing Luna.
 * We Used to Be Friends:
 * Wedding Day: Fluttershy and Big Macintosh are getting married, giving Celestia an excuse to visit and see precisely how Twilight is doing.
 * What the Hell, Hero?: Somepony has to answer to this.
 * A Wizard Did It: A Running Gag is Twilight's increasing frustration whenever she's informed that something has a mystical origin too complicated to explain concisely.
 * You Don't Want to Know:
 * Your Mind Makes It Real: While dreaming, they still can still experience severe pain.  It also works outside the dream.