Celestia was a nervous wreck as she approached her father's study. She was sure she already knew the answer to the question she wanted to ask, and she was sure it wasn't an answer she would like, and it was tearing her apart that she even needed to ask, that she couldn't just accept what she knew to be right and necessary. Why did she have to have these feelings? Why couldn't she simply resign herself to the life she'd always expected to have, the life she'd been trained to have? Since early childhood she had known that the stallion she married eventually would be chosen for her, that he would be a noble unicorn of fine bloodline, or an important pegasus or earth pony with a powerful family, chosen to make a political alliance or because he would be a good and complementary King Consort to a Ruling Queen. She had known that she would never be able to do as she wished for love. Why was she even bothering to ask her father this question?
But the one she loved challenged her to question traditions, to reconsider patterns, to demand to know if the way the world wanted her to live really was the best way or if it was just the only way anypony had thought of. She could be disgusted with herself for desires that were sick and wrong, or she could accept who she was and how she felt, and if she was to do that, then she had to challenge tradition. She didn't have the luxury anymore of believing herself to be a perfect princess, a model of decorum and propriety who would always Do The Right Thing, at least when The Right Thing wasn't defined by protecting the innocent or preventing harm but by what all the other noble unicorns agreed was The Right Thing, in the blatant absence of evidence that doing things any other way would actually do any harm to anypony. She wanted things that noble society said were wrong to want, and she wanted things that everypony agreed a princess could never afford to have, and she wasn't convinced anymore that the things she wanted were really so terrible that she should be denied them her entire life so she could live the life of a proper princess. Or Queen, eventually.
She rapped on the door with a hoof, too nervous to use magic lest she accidentally knock the door down. "Father?"
"Come in, Celestia," her father said.
King Starfire looked up from his books, a gentle smile on his face. He was a sky blue unicorn with a mane as dark as his youngest daughter's coat, and a cutie mark of five white stars, as if they blazed so bright they could be seen even in the daylight. Celestia trembled, trying to nerve herself. Her father had never been anything other than loving and tender with her; even when he was stern, the worst punishment he had ever inflicted on her was the knowledge that he was disappointed. She had no reason to believe he'd be angry with her... except that what she was about to ask him about was not only a violation of propriety, but could accidentally reveal that his oldest daughter and heir was a pervert, if she wasn't careful in how she chose her words. And she simply had no idea how he would react.
But she had to do this. "Father, I... I must speak with you."
The book that was floating in front of him set itself down on the table where his other books were stacked. Like Celestia herself, Starfire was a voracious reader. "Of course, Celestia. You know I'm here for you whenever you need me."
She took a deep breath. "I... I am plagued by a question, lately." And stopped, losing her nerve for a moment.
"A question you wish to ask me, daughter? Ask anything. Don't be afraid."
"Father, is... is love ever wrong?"
He looked at her quizzically. "Wrong? What would you mean by that?"
"I mean... is it possible to feel love, but to have that love be something you should not feel? Something that's wrong to feel?"
"Oh. Oh, my dear daughter. No. Love is never wrong." He got to his feet and walked around his desk. "Love is not always convenient. Sometimes we love the wrong pony, a pony who is bad for us or who doesn't mesh well with us or who doesn't love us in return, and that can be terribly painful. Sometimes we love a pony who is bound by honor or prior ties or their own love not to return our feelings, or we ourselves are bound, and that, too, can hurt. But it is never wrong to love."
That wasn't the answer she'd expected. It was the answer maybe she should have expected, because she knew her father, but she'd been so afraid. Starfire's answer filled her with hope and emboldened her to ask her next question. "So then... is it wrong to want to marry somepony you love? Even if that love wouldn't be considered suitable?"
"That's two questions and they are different matters from your first question. No, it is not wrong to have wants. It's not wrong to want to marry the pony you love. But, Celestia... you are a princess. You will be Ruling Queen when I am dead, and your husband will have power equal to your sister's. You can want to marry the pony you love, but unless you are very fortunate as to fall in love with a stallion entirely suitable for the role of King Consort, you cannot actually do it. What you want is not wrong to want, but understand, your life is not entirely your own, and it never was. You belong to our subjects, and what you do in your life must always be constrained by what is best for them, regardless of what you want."
It was the answer Celestia expected. It was softened by her father's gentle reiteration that her wants weren't wrong, that she wasn't a bad pony for having desires of her own... but it still meant she couldn't have what she wanted. She'd known that, but hearing it confirmed was a blow. Celestia sagged slightly. "I understand, Father."
Her father tugged her bowed head up slightly so he could look down into her eyes. "I don't think you do, Celestia."
"No, I understand. I... I cannot marry for love... it doesn't matter who I love, I can't be with him. Not if he's not suitable to be a King Consort."
"And you had a candidate in mind, I take it."
She blushed. "It doesn't matter, Father."
"It does. Love always matters." He sighed, and then went to his couch and sat on it, four hooves folded under his body. "Celestia, come sit by me."
Obediently she went to her father's couch and knelt on the pillows lying on the floor in front of the couch, folding her own four hooves under. "It's all right, Father, I do understand. I'll do what I must for Equestria."
"I never had any doubt of that. But... I don't think you understand, Celestia, because you are still in many ways still a filly, and sheltered. Your circumstance... is not quite as bleak as you fear." He sighed.
"What do you mean?"
"This is not a conversation a father ever relishes having with his daughter," Starfire said. "By all the gods I wish Imbrium were still with us. She would have been... a better pony for you to have this discussion with, for certain."
Celestia remembered her mother, Imbrium the Queen Consort, but only distantly. She'd been a pegasus, directly descended from Commander Hurricane, married to King Starfire in a political alliance intended to demonstrate that Starfire was sincere in his dedication to harmony between the three tribes. While she'd been the equivalent of pegasus nobility, Imbrium hadn't had the temperament for calm, overly controlled life at court; pegasus leaders were warriors or weatherworkers, ponies of action. She'd died shortly after Luna's birth, giving her life to tame a terrible hurricane that had blown in from the sea in eastern Equestria. "What do you mean, Father?"
"I mean no father ever wants to have this discussion with his daughter. But a Ruling King must make sure his heir has every tool she will need to hold her power and maintain a rightful and harmonious rule... which sometimes must result in a father who is a Ruling King telling his daughter the Princess Heir things no father ever wants to tell a daughter." He sighed again.
"I don't understand."
Starfire looked down at her, his expression managing to be both tender and uncomfortable. "My daughter... it is absolutely true that you must marry a suitable stallion to be King Consort. He must be a politically sensible choice. He must be a generally sensible pony. He must either be a noble unicorn, or a pegasus or earth pony from powerful families within those tribes. He must be stable. Courtly. Mannered. Harmonious. Capable of managing the complex etiquette of court life. While he may have powerful magic, and if he is a unicorn he probably should, he may not live a life dedicated to magic. He must get along with most ponies he meets. He must, above all, be a pony."
Celestia nodded, feeling something crumple inside her. Perhaps it was accidental, or perhaps Father knew, but he had just described the exact antithesis of her love, in every respect.
"But there is no reason a Ruling Queen cannot take a lover, so long as her lover is somepony who cannot possibly be King."
Celestia's head jerked up and she stared at her father. "What...?"
Her father looked away. "This is not... you understand, as a father this is not what I want to tell you," he said. "I want to tell you that love should conquer all and that two hearts should cleave to one another for true and always and that love is above all political considerations. But you are the Princess Heir, destined to be the Ruling Queen, and so I cannot say any of those things to you. What I can say, what I must say, is that many a consort... and particularly, King Consorts, since we stallions do tend to think we should be in charge..." He smiled at that wryly. "Well. The King Consort officially has no more power than your sister the Princess would. Less in a way, since she would take the throne before he would. But many a stallion has thought that his mare belonged to him, that she should share her power or even give it over to him, and when he is a King Consort and she is a Ruling Queen, that can turn very, very unpleasant. Consorts of either gender can manuever to try to supplant and take leadership from their spouse and rightful ruler, of course... but stallions seem to do it more often."
"I don't understand."
"No, of course not." He looked at her again, meeting her eyes, and then away in embarrassment. "Taking a lover who cannot be King puts a consort in his place, without making him genuinely fear for his position or making the nobles fear for the stability of the succession. It gives the Ruling Queen an ally that the King Consort cannot possibly turn against her, because all of the lover's power stems from his place in his Queen's heart. It provides her emotional support should the King try to make a move against her. And it reminds a stallion, deep down inside, that his mare is not his, but that if she is his Ruling Queen then he is hers and serves at her pleasure, not the other way around."
Celestia blinked, and then stood unsteadily. "Father, are you saying... are you suggesting... I should cheat on my husband?"
"No, of course not. If you have a lover when you take a husband, you should make sure your future husband knows the situation and is willing to accept it. You don't take a lover in secret and hide it from him as if you were ashamed. You must be discreet, of course, commoners would never understand and the image of the Ruling Queen might be marred if it were known she had a lover. But your husband must know before he agrees to be your husband, else it's a cruel thing to do to him." Starfire also got to his feet. "So, the stallion you feel yourself to be in love with. Do you trust him?"
"Father, I—I don't—"
"Oh, Celestia, no filly asks such a question of her father out of pure academic interest. I know there's somepony you want. Do you trust him to back you up, to stand up for you against every courtier and political machination possible?"
"Yes. Yes. I know he would support me against any other pony. Ever."
"Does he have a backbone? Will he stand up for himself? If a King Consort attempts to intimidate him, will he back down or will he stand tall?"
She almost giggled at that image. "He very much has a backbone. Yes."
"Does he love you?"
"I—I don't know. I didn't—I never asked him. I needed to know if, if it would even be possible, before..."
"Is he, by any chance, an incredibly powerful mage who happens to be an orphan who was raised in the palace, who lacks not only a family but has lost his entire species, who isn't even a pony in the first place, has ridiculously radical ideas about government that preclude him ever even wanting to be a king, can't stand etiquette and tradition and boredom but is very, very good at noticing political machinations when he wants to, and would probably go start a revolution to overthrow us all if he didn't consider me a father figure, Luna a sister figure, and wasn't madly in love with you?"
Celestia turned bright red. "Father!"
"The answer to the question I asked you, by the way, the one you never asked him, is yes. And it's obvious to everypony but the both of you."
"How did you know?"
"Aside from the fact that it was obvious?" Starfire said dryly. "The fact that he was in here asking more or less the exact same question you just asked me, yesterday."
"He... what?"
"Oh, you know Discord, he didn't come out and say 'would you try to have me burned at the stake if I made love to your daughter,' but from the questions he was asking me supposedly about pony culture and court etiquette and propriety, when I know for a fact that the main reason that colt has ever had the slightest interest in knowing what ponies consider the proper thing to do is so that he can come up with the most spectacular ways possible to do the exact opposite..."
"FATHER!" Celestia shrieked in embarrassment.
Starfire grinned mischieviously, like he had when she was a little filly and he had teased her with silliness. "Celestia. You're a Princess Heir. No stallion but me will ever have the right to tell you what to do, and I don't believe a father should have veto power over his daughter's heart, or what she does with her body. If you want Discord, take him, just be discreet about it. He'll be an excellent ally for you against anypony within the court who tries to subvert your power, and if he ever learns how to use his magic on a battlefield without being as great a danger to his friends as his foes, he'll be an incredible asset if you're forced to go to war to defend Equestria. Also, to be brutally honest, the stronger his ties of love and friendship are to our family, the safer I'd feel; if that colt ever decided to fight for his mad ideals instead of treating life as an elaborate joke, he could be dangerous to our entire way of life. You know he doesn't believe there should be any such thing as a noble class, right? Let alone a monarchy?"
Celestia nodded. She knew all about Discord's ridiculous ideas about government. She'd never been entirely sure if they were jokes or not, given how ridiculous they were, but he was certainly willing to expound on them at length. His latest was the idea that all ponies should be equally in charge of everything and anytime they wanted to get anything done, they should debate it until a majority of ponies agreed that the idea either should or should not be put into practice. When Celestia had pointed out that this would essentially ensure that nothing would get done, that ponies would spend all their time arguing with each other, and that Equestria would descend into total chaos, he had grinned at her delightedly and said that that was the best part, and then she'd remembered who she was talking to. "Discord doesn't hide his ideas from me."
"No, I don't imagine Discord hides his ideas from anypony, honestly. He's a radical with enormously powerful magic that even Starswirl can't counter when Discord puts his mind to it; if he were a pony I'd seriously be afraid of him. As it is, I don't think he'll start a revolution against you when you were the first pony to recognize him as a talking being rather than an animal, particularly when the beneficiaries would be common ponies, most of whom still seem to think he's some kind of terrifying ferocious beast and the rest of whom seem to find him entirely too annoying to want to spend any time near even if they recognize his intelligence. But the more he loves you, the safer we'll all be, Celestia." He was smiling. Celestia couldn't quite tell if he was joking or not.
"Is... is that really how you see him, Father? I thought... I thought you cared about him..."
"Celestia. That colt is the closest thing I will ever have to a son. Of course I care about him. He's also insane. He calls himself the Principle of Chaos and Disharmony. I don't care about the customs of a dead race he hasn't lived among since he was a tiny foal, nopony would adopt that title if they were entirely right in the head. And he's very, very powerful. As his foster father I love him dearly; as the Ruling King I have to identify potential threats to Equestria's peace and harmony, and if perhaps you did not notice, your love self-identifies as an oppositional principle to peace and harmony and is also more powerful than the greatest wizard of our age. So yes, of course I see him as a potential threat. And the pony thing to do with a potential threat is to befriend the potential threat and strengthen your bonds of alliance and friendship to the point where it is not a threat anymore. If you weren't the heir and he wasn't morally opposed to the concept of marriage I'd marry the two of you together just to keep him out of trouble, but he can't be anywhere near the line of succession to the throne – even if there was any hope that the ponies would accept a non-pony as a king, even if the fact that he is quite possibly the strangest looking being in all Equestria wouldn't bother them, his personality and politics are completely unsuitable to leadership."
"Morally opposed to the concept of marriage?"
"Oh, you hadn't heard this? Marriage is a cage, apparently, created by society to constrain the free-flowing chaos of love and shape it into socially acceptable patterns, thus crushing it. Or something. He's a mage anyway, most ponies who dedicate their life to magic don't marry, but I'm fairly sure I've never heard a pony declare that the way to prove the trueness of their love is to refuse to marry their love because the purpose of marriage is to destroy love's freedom and therefore if you really love somepony you won't marry them... Maybe it's a draconequus thing, or maybe it's just Discord being Discord. I confess none of it makes any sense so perhaps I'm completely garbling his argument, but I suspect he must be entirely head over heels for you if he managed to restrain himself from telling you all about how horrible he thinks the idea of marriage is."
Well. That did sound like Discord. "I... suppose... if he feels that way... maybe it won't hurt him that I have to get married to somepony else someday?"
"Oh, he'll be incredibly jealous," Starfire said. "Whether or not he believes in marriage for himself, he'll be infuriated when you marry, even though he's known you'll do so someday the entire time he's known you. He's never felt any particular need to place common sense ahead of his own emotions, you may have noticed this. But he'll be incredibly jealous when you marry whether or not you take him as a lover, and if he merely has to share you rather than losing you entirely, he may be willing to refrain from turning your husband's coat polka dotted and making his dinner come to life and run from him on a regular basis. At least most of the time."
Celestia had never really thought about what Discord's reaction would be when she had to marry. She'd assumed sorrow, heartbreak, like she herself would feel. It occurred to her now that Discord was not one to bravely sacrifice his desires for the sake of the right and proper thing to do, and her father was right that odds were, Discord would make the King Consort's life an unholy living hell out of jealousy unless Celestia could talk him out of it. And that this would almost certainly happen whether she took him to her bed now or not. She sagged slightly as the implications of what she wanted, and what her father was telling her to do, sank in.
"My daughter, I don't envy you the path ahead of you. The... well, not the pony... the one you've chosen to love is going to make your life very, very difficult. But few rewards come without risk, and at the least I am sure he will never bore you."
"So you don't think I'm... I'm perverse for loving him?"
Starfire sighed again. "I'm no xenophile myself, nor a stallion-lover, my daughter. I don't see what you see in him, but that would be true whether he was a pony or not. But love is never wrong. If you love him, and he loves you, then why should it matter to me that he isn't a pony? I know that colt's heart. He doesn't understand how to care about ponies he doesn't know and has never met, but nopony is more loyal to the ones that make their way into his heart. He'd tear down the sky for you or Luna, and I half suspect he literally could if he wanted to. You're everything to him. That's... all a father should care about when he looks at the one his daughter loves, honestly. Whether that one loves her and will cherish and protect her, and by that standard, Discord's far better than most of the stallions I've considered as potential candidates for your husband. He can't give you foals, most likely, but the Ruling Queen should never bear children of her lover anyway, so that's in this case a benefit."
Celestia felt as if possibly the Sun she was connected to was going to burst out of her face, embarrassment at this entire conversation and its implications overwhelming her. And then her father said, in a teasing voice, "Well, what are you waiting for, Celestia? You have your answer, you're a hot-blooded teenager full of hormones and you know how to cast a silencing spell on your bedchambers. I'm surprised you haven't run off to find Discord and tell him already."
"FATHER!" Oh, if this got any more embarrassing she would melt into the floor. Right now. Giant pony puddle all over the stone floor of her father's study. Everypony would wonder what had happened to the Princess and her father would have to explain that he accidentally killed her of extreme embarrassment.
"Go on, Celestia," Father said, sighing. "Go find your love and tell him... or don't. Either way, please don't tell me what you chose to do. This is hard enough for both of us already. Oh, and don't forget your contraception spells by any means; a draconequus is a part-pony chimera and Discord's entire power is based in improbability, so I wouldn't rule out the possibility that he could get you pregnant and that would be disastrous."
"Just kill me now, Father. Please. Just stop."
"Someday you may have to have this conversation with your son or daughter, Celestia. And when you do, I hope you remember that this is just as uncomfortable for me as it is for you."
Celestia sincerely doubted that. "I, uh, I thank you for your wisdom, Father. And, I, uh, I'm going to go now goodbye!"