//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4 
// Story: To Yield the Light 
// by RoyalPonySisters 
//------------------------------//

The next few weeks were more of the same. Luna gradually took over more and more of my workloads, even as Raven delegated more and more to others. It didn’t help. Every day was more draining then the next. Worse, I felt a persistent chill that could not be warmed by any blanket. I missed the fires of the Sun. But Luna was happy, and that was what mattered.

“At least I still have you, Philomena,” I told her one miserable evening. Philomena’s fiery body pressed against mine could at least improve the chills. Her feathers were soft and lustrous, unlike my mane which had lost a lot of its energy and sheen.

She squawked unhappily. Phoenixes do not like being held. Like fire, they like to fly freely. But I had been holding her an awful lot lately. She tolerated it because she knows me, but she had not been enjoying being my warmth every night for the past few weeks. 

“I know you don’t like this,” I told her. “Thank you for doing it anyways.” I had been hoping the chills would go away after a week or so of being separated from my Sun, but my body didn’t seem to have acclimated at all. In fact, the opposite had occurred, with the cold feeling growing more intense over time. Clearly, Philomena could not be a permanent solution. I decided to check the library. Surely there was a spell that could simulate internal warmth for an extended period of time.

After scouring the library for a bit the next evening, I was able to find something. Now, finding a spell to simulate heat is fairly easily, actually. I know at least half a dozen off the top of my head. But what I needed was not just warmth, but internal fire. Eventually an obscure spell on dragon flame did the trick. The relief was instantaneous.

“I won’t be bothering you anymore, Philomena,” I told her resolutely. She squawked happily in assent. That night, after weeks of sleeping with me, she flew out to hunt in the Canterlot Gardens.

The next few days were fairly uneventful. My duties were still exhausting, but no longer were they coupled with the feeling of being frozen internally, which did wonders for my mood. Luna was happy as ever, which was nice to see, and I had finally found equilibrium.

“I knew I would eventually be able to accept giving up the Sun,” I told Philomena one night. “Yes, it was difficult, but ultimately I think it’s better for everypony this way. If Luna’s happy, the kingdom is safer, and if the kingdom is safer, I’m a better ruler- and a better sister. The Sun, while an important symbol of my power, was never the important thing at all.” It all made sense, but I silently apologized to my beloved Sun for saying that it was unimportant.

That next day started out bad, and ended up worse.

When I woke up, my dragon flame spell had worn off, and I was freezing. Oh, how I longed for the warmth of my Sun! But that was not important, I reminded myself. The important thing was that my spell had warn off halfway through. I must have been distracted when I cast it, which did not bode well for the day. I quickly recast it and hoped it would have better staying power this time.

After breakfast Raven and I went on to go through the activities for the day. Most of it was the regular boring drudge, but we also had to pickup a box full of ancient scrolls that had been discovered at the Castle of the Two Sisters. Normally such mundane things such as transferring scrolls to a library would be far outside the purview of the Ruler of Equestria but there was an outside chance that these particular scrolls contained instructions for some fairly ancient dark magic that were not for most pony eyes to see. Considering that I would be the most equipped to identify and remove these dark objects, I had elected to go through the tomes myself. And besides, it was certainly a more interesting task than most of what I do.

I levitated the box carefully as Raven and I walked towards my personal library.

“It makes me nervous just looking at that box, Your Majesty,” she told me.

“You are right to feel that way, Raven. Whatever is in this box is quite possibly illegal dark magic that nopony has seen in centuries. Hopefully it will stay that way after I’m through with it.”

Then, and I can’t say exactly how it happened, the entire box fell to the ground and dozens of illegal scrolls rolled out in every direction, across the hallway. Some of those scrolls belched out dark dust with the distinctive odor of dark magic, while others continued to roll around in an uncanny manner that almost made them seem alive in some way.

Raven stared at me in shock and horror. “Your Highness, what happened?”

“I- I don’t know,” I admitted. One second the box had been fully within my magical grasp and the next second it hadn’t. I couldn’t for the life of me explain it. “Well, it’s all right, l’ll just pick this all up,” I decided, but Raven interrupted me.

“DO NOT pick that up, Your Highness. Those are dark magic containing scrolls. Protocol is not to touch anything containing unknown dark magic.” She whistled at a guard at the end of the corridor. “You. Contact the dark magic safety squad and tell them there’s been an incident. Nopony was hurt. Make sure they clean this up.” The guard nodded and galloped off.

Thankfully everything ended up being okay. The safety squad was able to properly remove the dark scrolls, which turned out not to be particularly nasty, at least on the scale of evil dark magic. But Raven kept asking me why I dropped the box. “I don’t know,” I kept saying. “I guess these things just happen occasionally? It is odd.”

“Perhaps the scrolls had some kind of enchantment to prevent them from being moved?” Raven theorized.

“Possible, but then how were they moved all the way from the Everfree forest so easily? I suspect it was just bad luck.” I pointed out.

“I guess,” Raven said, not fully satisfied.

I didn’t really think about it again until breakfast a few days later when I accidentally smashed a plate I was trying to pass.

“Wow, Celestia, butterhorn again? Between this and that box a few days ago…” Luna teased.

I blushed. “I don’t know if those two things are related, Luna, but point taken.”

Raven frowned. “Odd that you should drop two things within a week of each other.” 

Luna waved her hoof disparagingly and laughed. “Not odd if Celestia is actually quite clumsy.”

Raven sighed. “But she’s not. At least, not until this week.”

Luna rolled her eyes. “Yes, Raven. I was only teasing, alright.”

While I hoped the incidents of the week could be swiftly forgotten, the opposite occurred. They began to increase in frequency, to the point that I tried to avoid levitation whenever possible. Other spells, like my dragon flame spell, failed often and rarely lasted for their intended duration, leading to constant recastings.

After a week or so of this, I had to admit that something had seriously gone awry with my magic. “What do you think could be the cause of it?” I asked Philomena one dusk as I pored through books looking for answers. She sighed and pointed her wing at the setting Sun. In my heart I knew she was right.

“Well, what am I supposed to do then? I gave it to Luna! I can’t take it back now,” I protested. In general I tried not to think about the Sun as much as possible, because I missed it so much. The Sun never heeded my pleas, of course, injecting itself into my mind against my will and whispering to me. I have read about ponies that had a limb amputated but still felt pain from the “phantom” limb in their mind. I hoped the Sun wasn’t my phantom limb, but it truly felt like a part of me had been severed and just wanted to come back.

“I want you back, too,” I told the Sun sadly, but I shook my head. I needed to stop thinking about this. Not only did it make me miserable, I was risking Luna’s happiness to satisfy my own selfish desires. Luna deserved better than that. She deserved better than what she had gotten for the last thousand years because I couldn’t- wouldn’t- give up the Sun. I needed to get over this. Maybe if I did, my magic would come back.

“Lie down with me?” I asked Philomena hopefully. With my warming spells so hit or miss, I often also needed Philomena’s body heat for comfort. She cawed mournfully, and complied.