Chapter 1
Princess Luna woke up and raised the moon. She did this every night, except for that one bit when she was banished to the moon, and therefore was unable to move the moon in any meaningful direction relative to herself. She couldn't even move it downwards, on account of magic banishment spells. Luna preferred not to think about that time.
Once she had completed the first of her royal duties for the night, the princess left her room to seek out some food. She met her sister, who was also a princess, in the main dining hall where they were serving dinner. It was really breakfast for Luna, but that's neither here nor there. Princess Celestia was sitting as regally at the head of the table as any self-assured, all-powerful, royal, immortal elder sibling would, which was quite regally indeed.
"Greetings, dear sister," said Luna with words still laden with this day's sleep.
"Good evening, Luna. I trust you slept well?"
"My respite was pleasant and refreshing, thank you. And how has your day been?"
"Well Equestria was almost destroyed by dragons today, but luckily Twilight and a few of her friends managed to talk them out of it,"
"Right..." Luna suspected that her sister wasn't telling the truth. She had a certain fondness for pranks after all, and nothing interesting ever happened in Equestria.
Luna sat by Celestia and began her meal, picking frugally from the assortment of dishes laid out before her. The leftovers would inevitably reach the servants, and she was feeling generous tonight. When dessert rolled around, Luna discovered Celestia had ordered the banana cake, which she knew meant her sister had had a particularly rough day.
A frazzled black cat prowled behind the columns in the corner of the moon princess's eye. Canterlot security didn't let so much as a fly so far into the castle, so this was unusual, but not non-standard. Perhaps, the dark mare considered, tonight something fun would happen. Her sister had always assured her of how black was the single luckiest kind of cat.
Luna finished her sweets and went to attend court. The first pony with whom she had an audience was dressed in a scarlet vest and wore sunglasses. Luna only wore sunglasses if she was going to stay up late and she postulated this was the reason her audience was wearing them as well. She also understood that, considering how slowly this pony talked, staying up late must be a common occurrence for him.
"I's just sayest, thine maj-est-ee, that thouest hast the most regal, spellbinding mane...st in awl of Ee-ques-tria!"
"Hmm.... yes, and what was your request again?" Luna wasn't sure she understood modern Equestrian grammar, but she did try her hardest to comply with the rules her sister had been telling her about.
"Wellst, thee verily knows I run's a sort of biz-i-ness, don't I yer majesty? An' I's was just wonderin' if ye couldst- er... are you alright princess?"
"What, yes? I'm perfectly fine, carry on."
"Er... then what's that pegasus you've got suspended in yer aura there?"
"It is merely an assassin, subject, nothing unusual. As I said, carry on."
"Er... as I was- uh, wast sayin' prin-cess..."
As the night guards took the green-eyed assassin and their knife away to the dungeon, Luna spied the black cat again. It pounced between the rafters that held the vaulted ceiling together. Luna waited for her luck to pick up -as it surely would. In a land as magical as Equestria, it was unwise to ignore many superstitions.
After lunch, which some would call 'second dinner' and which the chefs called 'sleep deprivation', Luna decided to go out. She whistled and her cloak of bats came to her. The way they shuffled about made her miss her old cloak; a cloak of untrained bats was excessively itchy. A second whistle summoned her chariot and they took off towards the stars. Luna teleported them to the northern border of Equestria for old time's sake.
The princess arrived at a town with her usual electrical light show and quickly sent the least inebriated citizen to summon the mayor.
"GREETINGS- ahem, apologies- greetings madam, it is I, princess Luna of the night. I have come to inspect your village and offer any assistance I am capable of"
"Oh, yes, certainly, anything your majesty," stammered the pony brought huddling to her hooves.
"Indeed, anything I am capable of,"
"Of course, your majesty, I'll do my best,"
"You'll- I think perhaps you misheard me," It was times like this Luna wished the royal voice was still as customary as it used to be. "I am the pony offering assistance to you, not the other way around,"
"Well yes, uh... pardon?" Luna rolled her eyes.
"ARISE SUBJECT!" The subject arose faster than the lightning Luna had called down "Have you been raided by barbarians in recent times? Monsters? Are your crops doing well? How is your weather?"
"Well we haven't had this much lightning for a while"
"FOAL! ADEQUATE LIGHTNING IS ESSENTIAL FOR THE FIXATION OF NITROGEN! And besides... it is traditional, is it not?" And also, Luna liked the lightning.
"I- okay, I'll speak to the weather team about that. Is there anything else, your highness?"
Luna could sense this was going nowhere, so she decided to change tactics. "I HAVE DECIDED TO CHANGE... THE NIGHT SKY ABOVE THIS VILLAGE!" she announced "DOES ANYPONY WISH TO VOICE A PREFERENCE?"
"Maybe you could make it a little brighter?" ventured the mayor.
"Very well then, I shall bring the moon closer." Luna set the moon towards Equestria.
"Wow, it's already getting brighter!" Shouted one of the bystanders "And bigger too!"
"Wait, you're going to stop that thing right?" asked another.
"Of course not." replied Luna. Everypony promptly began to freak out. "...It'll take at least three days before it arrives." Nopony, however, was listening. Luna gave up. She picked up the mayor and bade her farewell. Clearly everything was fine in this town and she regretted waking anypony up. She considered offering a pair of sunglasses as a gift, but she didn't have any and wasn't sure that entirely made sense anyway. Mounting her chariot, the princess flew away.
Luna returned to her room. Just as she entered, she saw that black cat slink away through a window. Luna suspected that the cat was a fraud, as her day had been nothing but perfectly average so far. Annoyingly, the cat had also messed up her room.
She went to her desk and summoned a quill, ink and paper and began to write. Writing was a habit she had acquired on the moon, where she had inscribed the moon dust with her various thoughts and feelings at the time. Eventually, she sought a review on her inscriptions from one of her guards, who, although not the most professional of critics, had the considerable advantage of being awake.
"Seems fine to me, your highness," Said the guard after a brief inspection. Luna always found it interesting, the ways different ponies gave her their inevitable approval. This one was refreshingly temperate.
Suddenly a guard burst into Luna's room.
"Your Majesty! Something's happening in the observatory! We dispatched some guards to investigate, but they never returned!" This was something that required Luna's immediate royal attention. She calmed the guard and went to fetch her... Her helmet was missing. Something foul was a afoot, and Luna suspected the cat.
Taking wing, Luna flew to a balcony below the main observatory and slipped inside. The spiral staircase coiled up through the darkness like a snake, and Luna crept up it as if it really was. She peeked through the observatory entrance and felt a familiar kind of magic diffusing through the air. It was her magic, and it was probably being drawn out of her helmet.
She slid through the door to settle behind the room's enormous telescope. She still hadn't gotten a good glimpse of the culprit through the blinding purple light. She did have the eyepiece for the telescope in front of her though, and, curiosity growing, gazed through.
Maybe the cat was genuine after all... The telescope was fixed on the moon, and with the moon much closer than usual, Luna could make out some of her old writings. One thing in particular caught her eye- A spell she had created early in her attempts to escape her lunar prison.
Lightning obliterated the eyepiece and sent Luna flying. Inside the purple light, a shadow was growing. It stood on four legs, each tipped with needle like claws, had a tail that whipped furiously with flame and eyes that were radiant, fierce emeralds. Electricity licked up and down the walls. Streamers of magic formed a whirlwind around the beast. The light was swelling, growing in power and danger, before finally collapsing...
...Into Luna. She hadn't had much time to review her old spell, but she remembered enough of it to make a successful casting. It would swap any two objects- not terribly impressive in itself except that this spell would operate despite considerable magical interference.
The princess examined her foe. Draining her magic from it, it shrunk into a mangy black cat with fiery green eyes, and it quickly burst into green flames. By her sister did she despise this thing. It was the changelynx, and it somehow continued to escape almost every night despite being locked away every time. It probably sent that assassin at her too, using its mind controlling powers. Luna sent it back to the dungeon, promising to herself that she'd sort it out one day.
For the rest of the night, Luna fixed the observatory and watched the moon. She took the chance to clean up some of her moon 'graffiti'. Though none had the vision of an alicorn behind them, there were larger observatories in the world. Luna never suffered their letters with anything less than embarrassment. She had spent a long time on the moon after all, some of which she would rather forget.
Luna set the moon and went to have her third daily meal, which Celestia called 'breakfast' but which Luna preferred to call a silly name from her childhood that she'd rather not reveal. Nopony had ever told her off for it though.
"Good morning, Luna, how was your night?"
"Outstandingly average, dear sister. How as your sleep?"
"Very quiet, thankfully," Celestia always suspected her sister was lying whenever she said her night was average. She was a secretive pony after all, and something was always happening in Equestria.
Luna spent the rest of her time before bed chatting with servants and court officials. She then went to sleep, utterly prepared for another thoroughly average night.