//------------------------------//
// Before the Trumpets 
// Story: Iconoclasm 
// by Rajjah 
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Iconoclasm Chapter 1
Before the Trumpets





Princess Celestia stifled a yawn as she looked across the dark and placid valley below. Unbeknownst to anypony she had turned quite the night owl in the past 1000 years of working overtime and had come to appreciate the serenity the night brought. However, waking up early to perform her dawnly duties were not the only reasons behind the barrage of yawns that followed as she readied herself for the morning. She was bored again, and she knew it.

“Oh no everypony, alert the palace guard” she grumbled sarcastically under her breath “However shall we cope with such a disaster?”Judging from the number of times she had been through these dull spells Equestria would cope quite fine actually. The only thing in danger as of late had been the castle’s supply of baked goods. “I’ll need to watch the cake intake though” she quickly reminded herself, “wouldn’t want to have another rotund era now would we?”she chuckled to herself. Only recently had she been able to remove that last sculpture in the gardens from that rather hefty time in her life many centuries ago. If there was a consolation prize to the whole affair it was that the entire Canterlot upper class had taken to copying her voluminous shape. The memory of portly ponies trotting up and down the regal streets brought a smile to her face.

But really she couldn’t complain too much about the current state of affairs. What was that ancient Guoxia curse; may you live in interesting times? The past 2 years had certainly contained interesting events. Rectifying her relationship with her sister, encountering her old foe Discord, reading countless stories from her favorite group of ponies down in Ponyville, all of these were perhaps the most exciting things to happen in millennia. Then again it was probably the fact that she was coming off the high of those events that boredom was getting to her now. It had been months since she had seen her young friends when they had attended the royal wedding and that whole event had been so chaotic it could hardly merit being called a get together. 

Even the friendship letters had begun to slow down, although gradually they had less and less to do with friendship. Celestia gave a mental shrug. That certainly didn’t mean they were any less entertaining. But she had not received the letter in over three weeks and even though she had told her beloved Twilight she mustn’t obsess over them she was beginning to hope for at least some mishap in the little pony borough. The last one had been a somewhat passive aggressive letter from Twilight about coping with other ponies with differing opinions and respecting their point of view. From the tone she had dictated to Spike she still was adamant that Rarity was wrong but at least Twilight acknowledged she had gotten a little out of hand “What? Twilight Sparkle take things too seriously, heaven forbid.” she muttered to herself.

Luckily she had the liberty to be so sarcastic, as she had yet to raise the sun and bring about morning and all its inhabitants. The only one she felt comfortable acting sarcastic around was Luna and even she often missed nuances in modern speech ruining much of the fun. “Better make sure not to mention the whole boredom problem around Luna also” she thought aloud “might be a tad bit awkward after the moon fiasco.” 

Honestly Luna remembered very little about her moon millennium, it was all a jumbled blur of hate and darkness. Nonetheless Celestia had gotten her hooves on chain letters threatening that if somepony didn’t forward it to five friends the great Princess Celestia would send you straight to the moon. That just seemed unfair to her, as if she would do that to anypony for such a trivial reason. “I mean if I wouldn’t even do it to Discord then why would I do it to John Doe Pony?” That was partially true, although another part of her imagined Discord crashing a grimacing moon into Equestria. That was an equally good reason not to. 

To her surprise she found she was already at the Tower of Light “A wandering mind kills times” she chimed upon reaching the final steps. Looking across the blank horizon she focused on an exact spot ingrained in her memory. With a swing of her mane the mighty horn sprang to life illuminating the entirety of the tower, its glow visible for countless miles. But this was a quick treat for the early birds of the realm as it was quickly outshone by streaks of light creeping its way from the horizon as the great orb of light itself greeted a new day. 

“Simple yet it gets the job done” Celestia said to herself in the solitude of the tower. “But then again why make something more complicated than it has to be”. “Sure making a self regulating system would give me plenty of free time but what’s the fun in that?” The very idea would likely shock all but the most learned pony. The simple fact that the land beyond the Everfree Forest ran on its own confounded most but this was all academic even to the Princess. Even with her great power the size and scope of such a celestial system were beyond her. 

“This world is fine” she said. “No, more than fine, this world is good” she corrected herself. She took a moment to soak in the beauty of the city coming to life and lovingly looked out upon the valley that contained Ponyville and caught the glimmer of Cloudsdale off in the distance, now with specks of pegasi fluttering into morning formation.  By now the sun had wondered high enough into the sky to no longer need her intervention so she prepared to head back down to the throne room when something unusual caught her attention. 

Off in the distance almost exactly where she had originally raised the sun, a flash of light appeared briefly and then vanished. Any onlooker would have assumed it was just the princess but she knew better, she had been doing this too many years not to notice something out of the ordinary. She stared in the direction for several minutes, hoping to see the cause of such an anomaly, and was about to call it off and blame it on staring at the sun when she finally saw it. There in front of the sun came a mass of silhouettes, while also possessing great feathered wings, they were obviously not a Pegasus formation. For just a moment Celestia stared slack jawed, quite unlike her normal self. But then the look of horror that followed was just as foreign on such a regal face.

“No!” she whispered, it can’t be. “How could the messengers find me….find this place” her eyes narrowed as she remembered that this new threat affected everything she held dear. I must warn Luna!” she yelled, and regaining her sense of purpose her horn glowed deep and she vanished in a flash of light. ---




---Princess Luna lounged lazily across her bed as she closed the book she had been staring into for the past hour. “How to win friends and influence ponies indeed” she huffed “As If I hadn’t thought of such pedestrian methods myself” Honestly the younger princess knew she should try and implement some of the techniques listed in the book, but the idea of someone of her status relying on a self help book chaffed her sensibilities. “What task will my sister have me do next, take a course on etiquette from a Minotaur?” The last statement was followed by a sly smile even if at the moment she felt like doing anything but smiling.  In fact the only part of her strenuous re-entry program into pony society that she found any real joy from was reading the letters on friendship from the group of ponies currently in possession of the elements of harmony. 

Luna had originally not known how to feel about them, of course they had saved her from the darkness that had engulfed her soul, but at the same time she felt jealous that these ponies would get to be the keepers of the elements. Such had been the exclusive role of Luna and her sister until the dark times. But during the following months as she studied with Celestia she found herself curious of the many misadventures of this Twilight Sparkle whom her sister seemed so fond of. Anytime a new letter would arrive she would feign indifference in the court but as soon as she found herself alone would scour over each and every word in hopes of finding the same sense of connection that little pony seemed to have learned.

“I guess they aren’t so bad” Luna mused thinking back to her own little adventure outside the city walls. She had just finished hearing about Twilight Sparkle’s misfortune of freaking out over a late letter when she decided she would visit Ponyville for her 1st Nightmare Moon Night back in Equestria. Her sister had argued against it, feeling it would be awkward for everypony but it was no matter for Luna, her mind was set. Her sister couldn’t monitor every waking minute so that night she took her personal guard and descended on the poor unsuspecting town. While at first garnishing mixed results she left that night gayer than a lark.

“I still don’t know why sister laughs when I say that, she didn’t all those years ago” her head perched on one hoof. After that night she too had begun receiving letters. At first hopeful to be from her new friends she soon realized that every one of her letters were from children asking her to come and bring lots of candy next year. 
“I suppose it is a start” she bemoaned. “At least young Pip still writes from time to time.” Out of the corner of her eye she noticed the first beams of sunlight sneaking through the curtains. She’d had no idea what time it was, Luna mostly survived on a sprinkling of naps throughout the day and night so seeing her elder sister’s handy work woke her out of her introspection. She stretched for several minutes and had nearly built up the fortitude to get out of her linen sheets when the decision was removed from her hooves.

Suddenly Princess Celestia appeared violently and without warning on top of the bed causing the sheets to burst into flames and Luna to squeal in fright as she fell backwards onto the floor. After correcting her cross eyed expression and rubbing her conked head she fell back into a rage filled royal Canterlot voice. “Sister! We have had enough of your endless antics and shenanigans!” she boomed “When will you again treat me with the respect and dignity I so rightly deserve?” Luna was about to go off on an incident involving a laxative laced cake when she was cut short by an even deeper and more threatening Royal Canterlot voice, this one from Celestia herself. “Silence young one and listen, we are in grave distress” bellowed the multicolored monarch “I do not know if your memory reaches far enough back to know the threat that looms, but it makes little difference, you must go into hiding for they might not know of you or at the very least of your redemption” Luna could only stare in fright at this startling and confusing turn of events. She gathered her courage enough to respond

“Sister” Luna whispered, “What threat do you speak of, surely Discord does not warrant such a drastic….” But she was once again cut off by the larger mare “Enough there is no more time for discussion!” Celestia yelled. Her eyes glowed dark with ancient power and her horn began to shoot forth lightning. She stared at the floor and mumbled some lost bit knowledge. Luna was so frightened she remained glued in her awkward position on the floor, unable to even blink as she stared up in awe at the display before her.  Then suddenly and without warning Celestia ceased her chanting and looked upon Luna.  Light flowed from her eyes and her horn in a beam toward the younger and Luna could only exclaim a frightened “Sister?” before it overtook her. Luna could feel a sharp pain on her sides and across her legs but this quickly vanished as everything around her blacked out…..---


--- Celestia stood alone in her sister’s chambers, breathing heavily, and unable to clear the ringing from her ears. The spot where her sister had sat was now empty and slightly singed but besides that no trace of her could be seen. “I pray that it worked, it simply must have worked” she exclaimed “But the job is not finished and I only have seconds to work”. With that she backed from the room and sent a steady stream of sparks across the floor setting fire to all evidence that Luna had lived there just moments before. Letters from Luna’s little friends turned to ash as quickly as her pile of self help books and crescent moon decorations were quickly unrecognizable. Deeming it a success the Princess flashed her horn once more causing everything to be put out and ran from the room as quickly as she could towards the throne room. As she ran there she noted nothing out of place, no alarm was sound, and guards were not rushing through the halls. In fact it still seemed like a sleepy morning. “What if I was mistaken, perhaps I imagined it” the princess pondered aloud. “Luna will be most displeased with me, I don’t know how I shall make it up to her if…..” but she cut herself short as she rounded into the throne chambers. There standing around her were figures she had not seen in what seemed a lifetime, an alicorn lifetime at that. All of them were sheathed in layers of great wings but one.

“We were beginning to wonder where you would show yourself” a deep rich voice said “What good is having your own sanctum if you can’t be found to dwell in it?” the voice now dripping with ire questioned. Celestia looked up to see him sitting upon her throne, with an expression no being from this world could comprehend. However Celestia was not of the world and she could read it clearly and a sense of dread spread through her. “Please” she begged “I meant no harm, don’t take it out upon them, I swear upon…” she tried to plead but it fell upon deaf ears.

“Silence, You and your heresy will be dealt with in good time but now we have greater issues of concern, prime among them the Tinok Shenishba”.---