//------------------------------//
// Harmonious Duality 
// Story: Project Harmony 
// by Mr Khan 
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Chapter 2: Harmonious Duality

The eclipse had lasted for two weeks now, to the wonder and amazement of almost everypony. It filled them with a mixture of hope and fear: hope because now indeed the sun rose and set in an established pattern, and the count of Time had resumed. For two weeks now, ponies could wake and sleep as they had in the time before the ascension of Discord, and for that they were glad. The sun and the moon now moved in perfect harmony, however, ironically breeding discord in the fact that now the sun was continuously hidden, visible as only a fiery halo behind a ball of darkness that roamed across the sky from dawn to dusk. Similarly, the moon seemed to have vanished from the night sky, so that now ponies slept through absolute blackness and awoke to a dimly-lit twilight world. Thus there was fear, for in the resumption of the passage of Time they were now denied the sun utterly.
The persistent cycle of eclipse and blackness was the focus of everypony’s attention, except for the youngest Princess dwelling in the Canterlot Palace. Despite her inquisitive nature and her great curiosity, Luna was relatively uninterested in the new movements of the heavenly bodies, and instead fixated on something much more local: the mysteries surrounding her Alicorn sister.
Ever since she had gotten her Cutie Mark, Celestia had been spending a lot of time out of the Palace, or spending a lot of time in discussions with their mother and father, private discussions that Luna and the other foals were excluded from. All of this secrecy and privacy was something that really fired Luna’s imagination, but no-one seemed to be able to satiate her curiosity. Luna badgered Mom and Dad endlessly, whispered questions to Celestia while she slept in hopes that her sister would let something slip, and bombarded Lapis and Russ with endless questions. Everypony had become quite annoyed with her, except Celestia herself, who seemed to genuinely regret not being able to tell her little sister about what was going on, but she remained adamant about keeping Luna in the dark.
Luna was nothing if not persistent, and with persistence she was eventually rewarded. It came on the fifteenth day since the sun had risen, the fourteenth day of eclipse. Luna had been lurking in the shadows of the Palace Gardens, nearly invisible in the perpetual twilight with her night-sky-blue coat. She had been playing in the dark, stalking imaginary foes as she pondered her next move in the great quest to figure out what was going on with Celestia, when she got her big break. Out of the darkness beyond the Palace Gates she heard voices, eventually seeing three ponies come into the garden: her mother, her sister, and Wishwell the Wise, the very aged unicorn sorceress who was one of only a small group of unicorns still living in Canterlot.
Amethyst cantered along slowly, for the benefit of the elderly Wishwell. In the 12 years since Celestia’s “birth,” old age had finally caught up to Wishwell, dimming more than the color of her mane and coat. Now her formerly deep-blue eyes had misted over, and she had lost much of her vivacity, becoming yet more cantankerous than she had been. Celestia floated along on her wings, a talent that still eluded Luna, who could not fly for more than a few minutes at a time, and who seemed to have no speed between “stop” and “zoom.”
Luna demonstrated that deficiency by leaping into the air and dashing towards her sister. “Celestia!” she shouted happily, “How are… whoa!” the dark-coated and white-coated sisters ended up in a heap on the ground.
“Did you miss me?” Celestia said, chuckling. 
“Yup!” Luna said eagerly, “What were you…”
“Now dear,” Amethyst intervened, “you know she’s not allowed to answer that. You’ll find out when you’re older.”
“But I wanna knooooow!” Luna whined.
“Shut yer trap, Lapis,” Wishwell croaked. “Don’t bother Her Majesty or the Princess. They’ll tell you when they’re good and ready.”
“Lapis?” Celestia asked.
“Wishwell, that’s Luna,” Amethyst said gently.
“Yeah, I’m… Luna…” Luna trailed off. “Sorry for bothering you, bye!” and then Luna took wing and dashed off again.
“That filly ain’t right,” Wishwell said.

~00~

That night, in the pitch-blackness that night now was, only one creature stirred in all of Canterlot. Even the night guards had been retired in the past few weeks, seeing the pointlessness of attempting to perceive anything in the darkness. They could not have perceived the one creature currently moving, for its hooves were muted and only a subtle rustling of cloth could give it away. So it was that Luna made her attempt to get answers to the questions that had dogged her for the past two weeks, to finally discover what was going on with Celestia and why nopony would tell her about it. 
She made her way carefully, through the empty courtyards of Canterlot and into the Magic Academy, where her target dwelt. She did not bump or crash into anything, for she was guided by a night-vision spell. Luna was a bit of a magical prodigy, knowing as many spells at age 8 as Celestia knew at age 12. With this spell, Luna eventually found her way into a bedroom, identified a lantern, and lit it.
“Eh? Whozzat?” Old age had brought pains to Wishwell, making her a perpetually light sleeper, awoken even by the dim light.
“It’s me, Chancellor Radishred.”
“Whaddaya doing here at this time of night?” Wishwell squinted against the dim light, seeing before her a mass of rusty brown-red. It certainly looked right. And that exactly had been Luna’s plan, after Wishwell had mistaken her for Lapis. Lapis was 16, nearly full-grown, and much larger than Luna, with a coat that was close to turquoise, rather than Luna’s night-sky-blue. Lapis also had a much smoother voice, and didn’t have wings. If Wishwell could mistake her for Lapis, then if Luna herself donned a disguise as simple as a rust-brown blanket with eye-holes cut in, and tried to make her voice sound male, she could pass for a grown-up, someone who Wishwell would be willing to talk to. She picked Radishred because he was a grown-up who she had met a few times before, one who lived outside the Palace and thus could be more likely to ask stupid questions.
“I just wanted to ask about Princess Celestia,” Luna said, throwing her voice low in an attempt that wouldn’t have fooled anypony if they didn’t already have one hoof in the grave. “What’s she been doing lately that’s so secretive? Why keep it a secret from me, uh, Princess Luna?”
“Still the dumb earthie,” Wishwell cackled. “Ain’t you remember?” You helped create them.”
“Create?”
“Celestia and Luna,” Wishwell said exasperatedly. “The results of Project Harmony, the perfect ponies who will wield the Elements of Harmony and defeat the Draconequus. Celestia’s just gotten her powers, and now we gotta teach her about them, but we still can’t tell Luna because it’d just scare her.”
“And then when do you tell me, whoops, her?”
“When she gets her cutie mark.”
“And what’s so special about her cutie mark? Why’m I, I mean, why is Luna so special?”
“By the windigoes, you’re dumb,” Wishwell swore. “I better tell ya the whole story so you don’t need to ask any more stupid questions. But get it through your thick skull this time!”

~~0000~~

The hope born with the rising of the sun on Celestia’s birth had a life of mere hours, for soon the moon swiftly rose and blocked out the sun, and the counsels of the triumvirate were shaken.
“You said she would have control over the heavens!” Radishred sneered. “But only the sun moves as it should while the moon moves in mockery of it, cheating us of light and hope.”
“Please, speak softer,” Amethyst said. She had the newborn Celestia in swaddling clothes, only a puff of pink mane visible as Amethyst levitated her, gently rocking the tiny Alicorn as she slept. “She needs rest.”
“She is only a newborn,” Commander Gale added. “Perhaps her power is incomplete?”
“No,” Wishwell said. “As newborns, unicorns will sometimes manifest their magic talent spontaneously, as Celestia did. That Discord has brought out the moon means that she does not have a special bond with the moon as she does with the sun.”
“Then you’ve failed?” Radishred asked, glaring at Wishwell.
“Perhaps,” said Wishwell, returning his glare. “I’ll need to meditate on this.”
“And in the meantime, the hardship continues,” Radishred said.
So the first weeks of Celestia’s life were marked with vigorous academic debate, as Wishwell debated with her small cadre of apprentices and sorceresses, a handful of scholars left at the Magic Academy and spared from serving at the barrier. They debated the extent of Celestia’s latent powers and the nature of Harmony. The tumult did not touch the newborn Princess, however, as she was received lovingly into the royal unicorn household, as daughter to Amethyst and Starry Knight, and little sister to the 4-year-old Lapis Lazuli and 6-month-old Chival Russ.
Celestia knew only sunlight for the first weeks of her life, but the constant sun was a worrying omen, casting a shadow over the debate. As if to prove his continued supremacy in the heavens, Discord kept the sun in the sky for a time equal to 47 days before he started changing things up again. It was when the sun finally disappeared from the sky that Wishwell had an epiphany, solving the problem. She called the triumvirate back to meet, delivering her realization in four simple words:
“Solitude is not harmony,” Wishwell declared before the rulers, gathered again in the great meeting hall of the Triumvirate. “That’s the short version of what went wrong.”
“What do you mean?” Gale asked.
“The point of fighting Discord is to use a pony who can embody Harmony itself. That’s why Princess Celestia has the flame of harmony in her, and I figured this would make her elementally harmonious, able to control harmony and smash Discord once she comes of age. But it’s fundamentally flawed to assume that one pony can embody harmony on her own. Look at the sun, which regulates time and the rhythm of sleep and waking. Yet we see how Discord, in keeping the sun aloft so long, uses it to his advantage. The sun alone does not create harmony: it needs the moon. Day needs night to complement it and keep all things in order. So Celestia needs another, equal yet different, who can work together with her to create true Harmony when the time comes. In short,” Wishwell added, “she needs a sister. One created just like her, but based on the essence of the moon instead of the sun.”
“So we must make another?” Gale asked. “I thought you said that the borrowed essence of sunlight meant that we could not make another such pony?”
“There are plenty of bodies in the heavens,” Wishwell said. “I chose sunlight to be the basis for Celestia because the sun is the greatest of the heavenly bodies, and having its power would likely make Celestia supreme in the sky, able to wrest control of the Heavens back from the Draconequus, and subsequently restore order in its entirety. I can condense the essence of the Moon using the same magical process, it’s just that no other pony will be able to have that kind of control over the Moon or Sun while either of these ponies live.”
“Impossible!” Radishred fumed. “This one,” he said with a nod towards the sleeping newborn “used up the best of this year’s reserves. All of it. You needed good food, so we took the best-quality stuff from what we would have set aside for emergencies. As it is, everypony’s going to have to tighten their saddles until we can get another harvest out, and the Windigoes only know how long that’s going to take, or whether that harvest will yield enough. Plus, if we can’t set aside enough food in one go, it will spoil long before the next harvest.”
“That should not be a problem,” Amethyst interjected, noting the growing redness on Radishred’s face and the narrowing scowl on Wishwell’s. “We know of spells that can suspend certain objects in time. That should keep the food fresh for as long as needed.”
“Even so,” Radishred said, calming somewhat. “It will take some time. It’s almost impossible to predict harvest cycles now, but I would go with two years, maybe three.”
“We will endure,” Amethyst said, brushing her muzzle against the sleeping bundle she levitated before her. “We owe it to those who depend on us. We will not yield until their future is safe.”
“Right,” Gale said, though she sounded less than confident. “If it is possible, we must do it. It is our burden to everypony: Project Harmony,” she placed a hoof firmly on the table.
“Project Harmony,” everypony said.

~00~

In reality, it was almost four whole years before the Earth Ponies managed to raise enough surplus, high-quality food. It was almost as if the Draconequus understood their plans, for he once again hijacked the clouds of the sky, sending them to rain salt-water over the fields in an effort to poison the land on multiple occasions. Each time Commander Gale managed to rally her knights to beat back the assault, though each time it was a struggle.
Eventually, however, the food had been raised, and once again the triumvirate had reconvened at the Magic Academy, in the same chamber in which Celestia had been created. The arrangement was familiar to everypony in attendance: the Triumvirate, along with Wishwell and Radishred’s wife, Sour Grapes, and the arrangement of items necessary for the creation of the perfect pony: a large spread of hard-won food, a pair of Pegasus feathers, a torch burning with the pink Fire of Friendship, and a goblet filled with bright light. There were some differences, however. Wishwell had visibly aged in the last four years, Sour Grapes was now great with foal, the goblet this time was not filled with golden light, but with a bright, silver beam, and the sun was up rather than the moon, with the fiery orb tracing its way in lazy circles through the sky.
“Are you certain that you want to do this, Amethyst?” Radishred asked. He and his wife stood off to the side with the Queen of the unicorns. “You have three foals already. It wouldn’t be right to impose on your family too much.”
“It’s no imposition,” Amethyst said. “Even in these times, it is no burden to have more loving foals to take care of.”
“It just doesn’t feel right. Even if we did have to do more work than anyone to bring these ponies into the world, raising a foal is a lifetime commitment.”
“It would put us both at three foals each,” Sour Grapes added. “And I will bear this foal in a couple of months. That would mean little Luna would have a brother or sister just at her age as she grew up.”
“As I said, it’s no imposition. Ever since I was a little filly, I dreamed of having a large family when I grew up. Wishwell also believes it would be best if the two sisters were raised together, despite the four-year age difference. But you are quite welcome to come by as the crisis allows. There’s no reason that Luna and your new foal can’t be friends as they grow up. But Starry Knight and I have grown quite attached to Celestia, and we’ve been… looking forward to the creation of the moon pony. You called her Luna?”
“Sour Grapes came up with it,” Radishred said, rolling his eyes. “I figured it wasn’t fancy enough for a Princess.”
“It’s simple, but it’s pretty,” Sour Grapes replied, scowling at her husband. “It doesn’t need to be complicated to be elegant.”
“Like Wishwell is going to go for it,” Radishred said.
“Why would you care what she thinks? And who said she gets naming rights anyway?” Sour Grapes spat back. “Luna’s as much our pony as hers. She just came up with the idea, we had to put in the food.”
“Bet yer glad you haven’t gotten married yet,” Wishwell said to Gale, as the earth pony couple’s bickering grew loud enough to hear. “Yup, can’t beat the bachelorette life!” 
“I do think Luna’s a pretty name,” Gale said, wanting to change the subject. “And it would go well with her sister. Celestia and Luna: the Alicorn Sisters.”
“I guess…” Wishwell replied. “Then she will be called Luna.”
Wishwell hung silent for a moment, listening as the earth pony spouses continued to bicker. “I said she shall be called Luna!” the elderly pony yelled with surprising vigor. “So you lot can quit yappin’ about it!” Sour Grapes and Amethyst both looked smiled, while Radishred rolled his eyes. 
“Just get on with it,” he said shortly. 
And so the triumvirate, along with the witness, gathered to witness the ritual. “You can see the goblet is this time filled with liquid moonbeam, but otherwise everything is much the same: an elemental balance of the three pony tribes, and flame lit from the Fire of Friendship to provide an elemental link to Harmony. With the moonbeam, Luna’s domain shall be the night and darkness, when ponies sleep and the world is renewed. With Princess Celestia, they shall fulfill the cyclical nature of Harmony, and together save us all from Discord.”
With that, Wishwell initiated the spell, the orange ball of unicorn-magic drawing in the earth pony-made food, the Pegasus feathers, the harmonious flame and the essence of moonlight, which came together in a blinding flash of silver before the familiar cries of a newborn foal were heard. 
She was indeed as a shadow of her sister, having a coat as dark as the unspoilt night sky and a tuft of navy blue mane. As the tiny Alicorn cried, her horn glowed silver-blue, and the sun rapidly fell out of the sky as a crescent moon arose, beautiful and clear in the crisp night sky. “Princess Luna,” Amethyst said. “Welcome to the world.”

~00~

“And that’s how it happened,” Wishwell finished. She couldn’t help but tearing up a little, remembering that poignant moment, but she quickly composed herself. “Got it, Chancellor?” she stressed the title as far as her well-practiced sarcastic arts could carry her. “This really ain’t worth the lost sleep.”
“Yup, got it! Gotta go, bye!” Chancellor Radishred seemed to do an odd thing then, shedding his skin as a dark-colored mass bolted forth from Wishwell’s quarters.
“Moon pony, moon pony, moon pony, moon pony!” Luna cheered happily as she hopped through the darkness of Canterlot. “I’m the moon pony!” For the moment, Luna had absorbed only the most superficial elements of the story that she had tricked out of the aged Wishwell. So many questions had been answered, namely in how special she was. She and Celestia were special ponies, different from their other siblings, different than Mom and Dad. Celestia was meant to control the Sun, as she had when she had gotten her cutie mark a few weeks ago, while she, Luna, would control the moon when that day came. They were special ponies with the abilities of all three tribes and elements of the founding heroines of legend, as well as the power over heavenly bodies. 
“I’m the moon pony!” Luna repeated as she bounced along. “This’ll be so great! Me and Celestia will have so much fun! We’ll get to use the sun and moon to fight the Draconequus and save everypony! Only we can do it,” she said, slowing now to a trot. “Only… us…” Luna stood alone in the darkness, a darkness she would have to defy, to tame with moonlight. She suddenly felt very small and very alone in the unnatural blackness.

~00~

“Sister?” a small voice came out of the dark.
“Yes, Luna?” a dim golden light broke through the darkness, focused around a pure white face framed in pink.
“Could I…?” Luna began awkwardly.
“Sure,” Celestia said, not needing to hear the rest. “Hop on in.”
“Thanks.” Luna jumped into her sister’s spacious bed, scooting over next to Celestia’s larger body, navigated by the light from her horn. Though the Alicorn sisters shared a bedroom, still Luna occasionally made this request, when she was especially frightened. “Good night, Celestia.”
Celestia placed her wing over Luna’s frame as the light from her horn went out. “Good night, Luna.”
And there in the darkness of Discord’s unnatural night, the seeds of harmony began to germinate.