The table had been set with care.

Linen napkins folded like little swans. A pot of steaming jasmine tea resting atop a porcelain warmer, and two cups—one of delicate crystal, the other far larger than usual, clumsily swapped in from the castle kitchens after a few uncertain measurements.

And across from her…

You.

A being of impossible shape and proportion, unfamiliar magic and subtle movements. A creature of myth, if such a word could even begin to apply.

Celestia had faced draconequui and ancient darkness, stood unmoved before chaos storms and galactic alignments. But now, at this quaint little tea table just off the Canterlot garden, she sat across from a human.

And she wasn’t quite sure what to say.

Not because she didn’t have questions. Oh, she had many. Why were you here? How had the magic of Equestria allowed such a thing? Were you a fluke in the weave of realms, or something more deliberate?

But she didn’t ask. Not yet.

Because the way you were looking at her—with that subtle furrow of your brow, head tilted slightly, arms resting stiffly in your lap like you weren’t quite sure what to do with them—reminded her too much of a filly on her first day in the royal court.

Awestruck. Unsettled. Curious.

And perhaps, in your eyes, she looked just the same.

She took you in slowly. The way your feet didn’t quite fit beneath the table. How your knees bumped the underside with each little shift. How her world had not been made for yours, and yet—there you sat, with a cup waiting in front of you and sunlight streaming through the castle’s towering stained glass.

You knew what she was. She could see it in your eyes. You’d seen her kind before. But never like this. Never where the colors glowed warm against the marble, never where the scent of honeysuckle drifted through the windows, never where she was flesh and breath and crown and thought.

Celestia’s gaze softened.

She didn’t reach for the tea yet. Didn’t call the guards. Didn’t summon scholars.

Instead, she folded her forehooves neatly atop the table, tilted her head just slightly, and gave you that warm, impossible smile—the kind that felt like sunrise on a too-cold morning.

And, with quiet humor gently threading through her voice, she said,

“…Well. This is certainly unexpected.”