In High Canterlot, there was a beautiful rosewood table that had been a gift to her Majesty Princess Celestia in the eighth hundred and forty-first year of her long and illustrious reign. It was, by all accounts, both beautiful and functional, but at present it was mostly useful as Luna’s rather uncompromising pillow.
It was hard to blame her, really. They were all exhausted, and she bore perhaps the most physically taxing burden.
There were four princesses in the Chamber of Beginnings, as it was called. Luna, who dozed. Twilight, with a mountain of reports. Celestia, staring at the map they had tacked to a large board. Cadance, across the long table from Twilight, writing a letter to her husband.
The air in that room was thick. Which was to say that any room where four supernally powerful beings worried over the fates of tens of thousands was bound to be unbearable to anyone below that station.
Few ponies had seen Celestia in this mood in living memory, her brow furrowed and her eyes alight with some strange fire. This was not because the fell mood was novel. No, rather it was ancient by the standards of this current generation. Celestia had worn this mask and others far more terrible in older ages.
Those ages past, her grim memories of them, was why she let Luna rest.
Cadance finished the letter and burned it with a Sending fire before coughing. Twilight flicked her ear towards the erstwhile babysitter but said nothing. Celestia didn’t even do that much.
“Are we just letting her sleep?” she whispered.
“Yes,” Celestia said. She had spoken seldom since the last messenger came.
“Doesn’t… I mean, shouldn’t she…” Cadance sighed and gave up.
“It was a long night,” Celestia muttered, lighting her horn as she rearranged some of the tacked on notes.
Before her was a grand map of the continent, and of the surrounding sea, and far to the right there was a forest of tacked on notes shrouding the eastern continent. Most centered around a single area.
They had things written on them, numbers and symbols, some of it in the common tongue and some in languages Twilight struggled to identify. Together, the sisters had worked hours and hours, slipping occasionally into a tongue that none but themselves in the palace could decipher.
Cadance sighed. “I’m sorry. I know she was up, I just… I just would rather we all be together.” She buried her head in her hooves. “This is so…”
Celestia said something in that strange tongue again, and then paused. She shook her head. “Forgive me. I think we should all take a break, to be honest with you. Twilight?” No answer, so she tried again. “Twilight?”
Twilight said nothing. She stared holes through another stack even as she worked through it.
Cadance poked her, and the poor mare startled, losing her grip on hastily scrawled reports which flew all over the table and on Twilight herself. As one slid down her horn and face, Twilight put a hoof over her mouth and stared for a moment.
“Dear Cele--you scared me, Cadance,” she hissed.
Cadance smirked. “Sorry, Twiley. Auntie was calling you.”
“Oh.” Twilight’s ears pinned back as she glanced over. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Celestia managed a short smile. “I quite understand. I was saying that a break might do all of us good. There is plenty to do, but not all of it must be done before the sun sets… and we have a few hours before that yet. Quite a few. Would the two of you mind asking the servants to supply…” she paused, and hummed. “Tell them to bring my usual to the Dusk room, would you? No, strike that. Twice my usual, and to bring the Canterlonian. Mead will know what I mean. I’ll wake my sister.”
Twilight blinked at her for a moment, and then jumped into action ahead of a weary, plodding Cadance. They both knew the room, and they knew Mead. It was her favorite, after all, and many a long night of studying had taken place in that room.
So it was that only two sisters sat in the middle of the detritus of an international crisis, one of them waking and the other sleeping. Celestia was silent, watching Luna’s undisturbed rest. She watched her slow, rhythmic sleeping and unbidden memories older than cities sprang up to stab at her. Luna, lying the tall grass of a plain they had believed in those days endless, her sister forever--her sister like the others but not like the others--her sister restless and mercurial, but still her own--her sister sleeping so soundly.
Celestia was still like a statue is still, deathly so and without any sign of changing. The younger alicorns had not learned to be as she was. They had not learned to be how Luna was, either, but they had at least a tiny glimmer of what that something was. What had they really seen of Celestia the Inexorable Sun?
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, she crossed the boundary between herself and her sister, edging around the long rosewood table with absolute silence until she stood only inches from Luna. She leaned down and kissed her sister on the cheek, and on the forehead, and then she spoke in a language only they remembered.
“Rise, sister mine. There is wine and bread for thee in my suite, and I believe some good company.”
Luna groaned softly. “Hold thy tongue, Ruby of Canter, and leave me to my sleep… Mm.” She stirred as Celestia shuddered. “Go and pester my sister, wanton.”
Celestia took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Oh, Luna,” she breathed. “I’m so sorry.”
She spoke again, this time in the common tongue. “Luna? It’s time to get up.”
Her sister stirred.
“What is the hour?” she croaked after rubbing her eyes. “By the whore-halls of Valon, my head aches!”
Celestia smiled briefly. “Those places burned down long before you were exiled and you know it.”
“Aye, I do.” Luna stretched. “But I think you have let me sleep overlong. Where are our new little sisters, hm?” She chuckled at her own joke.
Celestia flinched, but her voice was light. “Oh, just gone ahead a bit. I was going to retire with them briefly. I thought you might like to laze upon something more comfortable than a table, Lulu.”
“Certainly.” Luna rose and absently preened. “Well?”
Celestia smiled and they left.
*
Formally, it was known as the Chamber of Dusk, but she rarely used that name. It was the Twilight room, when she was feeling mischievous. It was Sanctuary when she was feeling burdened. And on those happy but rare occasions when she and her sister or perhaps a blushing Twilight decided that the night was young and wanted the baptism of the vine, it was the convivium. A drinking party, if you wanted to keep it all within the bounds of a single language, and one that occasionally moved from room to room.
But tonight, no one seemed very inclined to move. Twilight nuzzled close to Luna, sighing happily as she did. “I can’t believe you fell asleep on me, Luna,” she said, her voice hazy. Slurred. Not terribly, just a little.
Luna shifted to kiss her forehead, beside her horn, and smile into her mane. “Pray thee, Twilight of Ponyville, when would you have me sleep instead? I am up all hours of the day now as well, it seems.”
Twilight, eloquently, murmured something about beds and the proper time and place, and Luna chuckled at her.
They were quiet as they could be. Light food had been served, eaten, complimented, and then forgotten as Celestia retired to her quarters. Cadance had stumbled down the hall to her own temporary lodgings. Twilight and Luna had meant to move to their own room, but one of them was a little drunk and the other was… conflicted.
Twilight nuzzled against her neck and kissed her in that wonderful spot where it met her shoulder and Luna and shivered. Her ministrations continued, and so it took Luna slightly longer than it should have to squirm out of her reach. “Twilight! Honestly, love, this is still my sister’s quarters.”
“Mrmrbl,” said Twilight.
And Luna sighed. “Yes, something like that. I think it’s time I found you a bed.”
Twilight protested, and perhaps would have managed to give a coherent defense of her present status had Luna not nosed under her and prodded her right off the comfortable divan. Her shaky hooves hit the floor, only for Luna to be there immediately, guiding her towards the door even as she slumped.
“Are you alright?” Luna said when they had passed into the hall. The guards were gone, sent away for the night by Celestia for the sake of a few hours of genuine solitude.
Twilight nodded into her shoulder, and in the lowlight Luna’s preternatural sight caught her mouth turned up in a ridiculous smile. She relaxed and smiled herself, before putting a wing over Twilight and leading her through the halls.
*
It began as most things do, in the details.
Prance, that old colony of a younger Equestria, lay proud along the sea to the east. It shared a border with the Griffons, revitalized and encouraged. Things generally were civil—it helped that Equestria guaranteed Prance’s freedom, but there was little need to fight Griffonstone ruled vast swaths of land filled with mineral wealth that it had yet to truly exploit, and Prance was a place of bustling trade and high society. To each their own.
Maps are a great shaper of opinion. Ponies and Griffons alike revere them and trust them. Why, if it’s on a map, then it must in fact exist. Even if the map is wrong, then surely it was a miscalculation and not a fable.
So when in the restoration of the palace at Griffonstone, old maps depicting a much larger empire were found, there were those who saw and who believed with fervor.
Perhaps blaming the maps is unkind. War does not change, and though individuals often do, great masses of all races are slow to shift. All of the old ghosts follow even prosperous little nations like Prance, or haunt proud and ancient empires like Griffonia. The idea that something may, but probably does not, belong to you soon becomes a hard certainty that the thing or place in question does in fact belong to you. And soon that certainty lends itself towards an accusation that the thing in question was stolen, and that in fact it is your birthright.
It was an old story.
Luna knew it well. She sat alone upon her balcony, overlooking Canterlot in the core of the night. She’d tried to sleep. Honestly, she had. In the bed beside Twilight, she’d laid, warm and secure and yet appreciating neither. The cocoon of blankets could not satisfy. The imprint, the slight valley they made together in her mattress was not enough.
Or, if she were honest, she felt an old ache and lying beside her lover simply felt like somepony stamping on a bruise.
Briefly, very briefly, she was in another place and another time. Canterlot melted before her eyes and instead she saw a city that was now rubble on a lonely isle in the great western sea. Maldon, the island Midway, the time when she was younger and the world was younger, and creation both more vibrant and more terrifying. And she heard perhaps, or did not hear but wished so powerfully for just a moment to hear a voice, her own, saying—
“I can hear thee, shuffling about.”
“If thou were in your true demense, then would it would be I awake before you, Nightwalker.” A chuckle. The sound of sheets. “‘Tis odd to find thee at all awake at such an hour.”
“I am more comfortable in my sister’s sun than is imagined.”
“Of course, of course.”
And then a light laugh as Luna closed the gap between them. “Doubt me? That would be foolish. I am thine liege.”
“Aye, forever and beyond the count of years, I know. I remember,” came the breathless reply after a moment.
She wanted to fly. She wanted to fly until Canterlot was gone and then keep flying. Just take off and not look back until Equestria was a memory and then there would be an endless sea that did, in fact, end and then the west. And then the last plain and the wetlands where the world thinned and then last walls of Night itself and then…
Well, and then.
But she didn’t do any of that. Of course she didn’t. The desire was brief, if urgent, and it died as soon as it arose.
It wasn’t Twilight’s fault. It wasn’t anypony’s, probably. Not a single pony’s, or a single griffon’s fault. Just… just the world. That was it. The world and all it contained, these were her foes.
It wasn’t something she could share with Twilight. Not totally, not fully, not openly. How do you sit beside a mare who does not yet know what the long march of years is like and expound upon its sorrows? And it wasn’t really that, was it? Because, when she was honest, long life was short life extended and even when it was different it was yet the same. No, it was… it was Ruby. It was Ruby again. Why her? Why her always, when Luna felt the emotional rush of conflict or felt the air thicken with dread, did she think of beautiful Ruby and miss her with such an ache that she wished to die?
Celestia broached the topic first, as they stood over the table again. The reports were in from a hundred hundred officers, ponies of long lines of honor. The armies of a peaceful principality mobilized for a war they prayed would never come.
“The ambassadors from Griffonstone haven’t answered yet,” Celestia said softly.
“No.”
“I’m honestly unsure if they will.”
Luna grunted. “They will or they won’t. We will be ready either way. Whatever comes for us.”
She did not look up. She focused. Numbers passed her by, names melted on the page. War had changed but it had not completely changed--ponies and food still needed to be moved reliably. Supply lines had to be maintained. Leaders had to be selected carefully and then given the supplies and support they needed. Soldiers needed looking after and the right mixture of firmness and laxitude. She would be there among them as they moved from their garrisons to the coast. Luna would again be their princess of war, her hammer tinged with argent light as she walked among them on parade.
What a part to play, an avenging angel who seeks delight in battle like a mare in heat seeks a mate. Yet it was a part she could play well when the drums called her down to dance in the ballroom of death.
Celestia spoke again, this time in the old language. Luna paused to parse it out--she had not been on the tableland of Jannah in millenia. The language the ponies there had spoken was rust on her tongue.
“Sister. Are you thinking about it again?”
“About what?” Luna asks in return, not meeting her eyes.
“Maldon.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry. I thought… I knew you might. I have been thinking of it also. When I woke you earlier, you spoke to her.”
Luna stiffened. She did not speak for a long moment. Her eyes bored holes into the table, through the reports, through the tiled floor, through down to the earth.
She wanted to deny it, but… but no, she knew. “I am sorry. I will not let her distract me.”
“That isn’t what I’m worried about, Luna--”
“I can’t.”
“Please. Please, let me help you. I was there on the plain. I know I wasn’t… I… she was my friend to. I lost so many friends at Maldon.”
“I know.” It was a pathetic noise, more whine than speech. She dropped into the common tongue. “Celestia, I’m afraid.”
The reports were forgotten. Her sister was already beside her, on the other side of the table.
“What if we lose them? What if it all goes wrong again? As it did upon the slopes? As it was upon the shore?”
“We won’t. We won’t lose them.” But Luna was sure she heard her sister’s voice stagger. Even as Celestia enfolded her in a warm, fierce hug, she felt the sun’s shepherd waver. “We won’t. Not now and not ever. Neither of them. None of our friends.”
Luna didn’t say anything at first.
“I feel,” she spoke at last, haltingly and timidly, “I feel that maybe we ought to tell them. Twilight. Cadance. They should not go into this business unprepared. I worry how it will change them. It changed us.”
“We balanced out,” Celestia softly. “In the end, we balanced out.”
“We had time.” Luna’s voice breaks. “We had time and space to come to grips. They will not. When there were only a few thousand ponies we bore them around our necks and it was heavy enough to shatter our bones. But now we will ask them to bear the suffering and the hopes of hundreds of thousands. If I am afraid of that burden come ‘round again, what shall my poor Twilight do when the time comes to be a figure for them? How will she or Cadance bear the weight of a nation, sister? Of death?”
“They will. They’re strong.” Celestia hugged her tighter, as if that would prove anything. “So very strong, and they will learn. We can… surely we can keep them from that. There are four of us now.”
“Not unless you mean to hobble them.”
Celestia flinched.
“I don’t. I’m not.”
“I’m sorry.” Luna buried her face in the crook of her sister’s neck. “I know you don’t mean to coddle. I just… What will she become, Tia? When the war drum beats we change and I know she must or she will… she will not make it and I fear both possibilities. What will it make of her?”