SkunkyArt | owlcoholik — Imperial Sun Goddess

Celestia has had many students over her lifetime, and those she takes under her wing achieve awesome power in their lifetimes...though a surprising (maybe worrying?) number of them have chosen to use that power to try and overthrow and/or destroy her and the entire land she rules over...

A non-complete list of ponies Celestia has mentored over her lifetime in some capacity (not all of these were personal students, some of them just studied at her magic academy): Starlight Glimmer, Twilight Sparkle, Zecora, Sunset Shimmer

Starlight and Celestia have the worst relationship of any of her (living) students. These two hate each other with a BURNING passion. Starlight was meant to be Celestia's biggest success but ended up being not only a massive failure to her, but a complete humiliation. When she found out some hick-town mountain pony had tricked her way into becoming her student...oh she was so mad

Has a difficult relationship with her "sister" Luna, to say the very least. Luna never forgave her sister for banishing her to the moon, but even before that, she never forgave Celestia for cursing her with immortality. When Celestia sent a young, pre-ascension Luna to perform an awesome task to save Equestria, Luna was told she'd die in the process, something Celestia knew was a lie. Not to mention when Celestia sent Luna to the moon she blew her horn off in the process, which is why Luna wears a special helmet to channel the magic from her broken horn-stump. Also, Celestia and Luna are not sisters in a family sense...not even adopted sisters. I'm thinking it's more like how nuns call each other "sister" if that makes sense...

Like Luna, Celestia had a life before her ascension. She doesn't remember much of it, it was a long, long time ago. She remembers her fathers and the castle she was born in, but not much else. Like Luna, she also didn't choose to become immortal, it was forced upon her by a combination of circumstance and deception.

Her horn has a white outline because it was granted magically when she ascended to alicornhood. She was originally a pegasus born into the old Cloudsdale ruling family, and she was the first pony to become an alicorn. She's super powerful but that power has come at the cost of pretty much turning her into an unfeeling, undying, unloving, unyielding drone, dedicated to protecting and herding the ponies of Equestria into a new perfect world of her design...all will accept friendship and harmony, if not willingly then by FORCE

Celestia does relinquish her position as Queen of Equestria to Twilight Sparkle, her most successful and loyal student, when the time is right. That doesn't mean Celestia has given up her power, her influence over Equestria will last until the sun burns out and the stars fall from the sky. Many of her subjects still worship their goddess despite the change in management.

Luna is also still there but her power has been greatly reduced. She was always basically just a figurehead and a concession to the bat ponies and other horse minorities in Equestria, giving them a "guy in their corner". But now half bat pony half unicorn Twilight Sparkle is queen and pony racism is over right? ...Right??