From where she was pinned to the ground with magic, Princess Celestia stared up at the mare who stood above her. The dark intruder gazed at her with such malice, ignoring all protests of the frantic mare she had pinned down, who made no move against her.
The world around them was blurred with only their bold forms remaining distinct in a world of night and haze. Celestia had watched the darker mare's horn glow with the magic that plunged them into this place, the small cloud of magic like a pet nebula aiding her in the conquest she was attempting in silence. The balcony still felt solid beneath Celestia's back, though she seemed to be stuck in a state that bordered on a dream. Celestia had been unable to grab anything to take with her before she heard that chilling voice whisper a greeting that bore no warmth...
...Well, she had been able to pull one thing with her before she was dragged into this place-in-between places.
Lighting her horn with a thin flicker of aura as another's clawed at her own throat, Celestia levitated a scrap of paper over from where she had frantically clutched her testament to her sister. Her eyes had already begun to water.
"Luna," she croaked, "l-look, there's a l-letter for you—"
She could pull herself out of this, it wasn't as much of a predicament as it looked to be. Or felt to be, even if Celestia could swear that all the world's weight had shifted to her. Her eyes, still wide with disbelief at the sight of her, the one she thought was gone forever in the depths of madness and locked so far away, were panicked and teary. She still watched as the silent mare who stood above her snatched the letter with disdain. Celestia struggled to breathe for more than one reason as she watched her sister tear it open and glance at the contents with those cruel, demonic eyes that weren't hers.
They couldn't be.
Long ago, they had been blue. Or green. Celestia wasn't entirely able to decide, and her sister's eyes were always looking somewhere else. Perhaps they had been both colors? The blue of the sky and the green of the world they walked. She remembered how happy they could be, how filled with a wonder that didn't look to be possible, and as time rolled on, how miserable...
...She remembered how she, ages ago, wanted all that wonder to vanish and for her little sister to be less little, to grow up...
...There were so many fights that shouldn't have happened. They were both in such horrible places, but it had only taken all of this and a thousand years more to realize just what she had done. All the years of aching loss were just to attempt to come to terms with what had happened.
She didn't want to remember screaming at a mare not yet grown that she didn't want to be her sister anymore. But she did. She remembered ignoring her. Forgetting her. Things that shouldn't have happened.
Things that had happened.
Celestia didn't want to remember them any longer. She poured them into that letter, the one that now sat in the magical grip of the despairing goddess who stood far taller than her little sister did, even when she had sat on a throne next to hers, grown-up and forgotten by the one who promised to always be there for her. For them both.
She tried to pull her slipping mind and swimming vision out of dark unconsciousness, if only so she could watch as Luna read over the contents — or maybe she just skimmed them — with disgust, anger. Then, in one flippant gesture crumpled the entire thing and tossed it into the air... and in a second that felt like forever, lanced the small piece of paper with a bolt of white-hot lightning.
With a hoarse scream, Celestia wrenched herself from the grip of her sister — her sister, who she should have loved and appreciated ages ago — and tried to levitate the scattered ashes that rained down into something like it had once been, but all in vain. That letter had been the only honest thing Celestia had done in centuries.
Behind her, she finally heard her sister's twisted voice again.
"Do you really think I could believe something like that? I follow the word of no tyrant, and do you think just because we share blood means I will believe you? Or trust you? You are nothing but a liar, Celestia!"
Celestia managed to land with wobbly legs on the phantom balcony to look upon her sister with doleful eyes.
"Luna..."
"We are not sisters; even the Elements you no longer display appear to agree."
"Luna, Luna... please just let—"
"Nightmare Moon is not your sister," the dark mare replied with narrowed eyes, cold blue meeting watery magenta. Celestia tried to stare past the venom in her slitted gaze.
She tried to think of Luna and found no difficulty in doing so. Luna was all she could think about. Visions of an introverted and wonderstruck blue filly who grew into a tall, near-silent mare clouded every part of her mind.
"Luna, somepony in Ponyville can help you—"
Celestia found herself cut off by an arc of blue magic that grew outward from Luna. Her little sister's horn was glowing with amounts of magic that cast dramatic shadows across her black coat in the night as she leaped into flight once more. One thing was clear; there would be no talks, no peace. Tears finally sprung in Celestia's eyes and sobs tried to force their way out of her throat, causing her chest to rise and fall rapidly. Luna almost took her eye out. Luna burned her letter. Luna wanted to fight her.
Celestia couldn't bear to fight her again. Her golden aura disappeared and the ashes of her letter dissolved, passing through barriers and slipping into the physical world, where they fell to the castle grounds surrounding Canterlot.
Luna was beyond any help she could give.
But Celestia loved her anyway.
...
Trickles of sunfire streamed behind Celestia as she flew, forming ribbons of light that were bold, bright, beautiful... and incredibly destructive. A canvas of stars was her backdrop, but Luna's strange magic made it feel so far away.
She tried to hide the creeping exhaustion that was trying to smash through her shaky resolve. How long had it been since she last used her magic to combat another divine like this? The bright gold-white light that followed her like streamers offered no answer. She had been unable to fight Luna the first time, but if her recollection in the heat of the moment served, it was for mostly emotional reasons. She had started to crack then, crying like she hadn't since she was a filly, even though the aftermath would prove to be worse...
She had resorted to the Elements then, and before that, there had been Discord. They had fought him once before they sought out the aide of something external of themselves. Before Discord and the Elements, there had been Sombra, the tyrant king of the hidden Crystal Empire even they had known nothing of. That was when she last recalled her magic being used so violently. After Discord, her magic no longer burned as fiercely and violently as the magic of the sun's god should. In youth, she had always been a reckless pyromancer, and that had terrified her.
But at the Crystal Empire, she recalled some foe even far before that — there was Tirek, whom she had seen at such a young age in horrible times. She fled, hoping to save others... and in the tyrant's destruction, she saw that the Tribal Era needed no witches to create a world where ponies would burn. She had lost it at the Empire — the thought of another tyrant, another doomed nation...
...the thought of dooming her own nation in the present was too much to bear.
They had lost there. But now, it was just her. Her against Luna, in a fight she refused to throw herself into. Her magic felt so weak, but was that just an effect of her faltering resolve? Celestia winced — both because she hadn't been the better at magical matters and because she felt a bolt of Luna's burn her right hindleg from behind. She didn't cry out, but the pain of a direct hit hurt it more than it should have. She suspected the sting came more from knowing her attacker's identity rather than the burns that seared at the slightest stretch of her leg. She smelled something that was undoubtedly her charred flesh and felt her stomach drop.
It was not something she ever wanted to know again, ponies burning. There also appeared to be no end to the little world that Luna had woven, trapping her here like a moth in a jar. The world outside was reflected through a thick glass that warped her perception as she beat her fragile little body into the hard surface, again and again, waiting for the icy cold of the smooth and unforgiving surface to soak into her as she fell.
Celestia yelped, but her sister's name, and it sounded like a desperate plea she couldn't stop once the tears had started, pleading she was in there as well. She heard the air slice around her and a dark blur cut through the night, the shadows of mountains like teeth standing behind her. She had no night vision like her sister, she flew blindly into the night except for what her sunfire — a power exclusive to her — could illuminate causing her body to be striped with chains of shadows that showed the necklace of bruises above and around her usual golden one.
It appeared she would not be making it to the Summer Sun Celebration in Ponyville tonight.
...
It was hard for Celestia to see past the tears in her eyes. She knew she couldn't blink, not for one moment.
But Luna was right in front of her, with her cloud of magic that followed her like a familiar still hanging about her form and merging with her magic when she made it, giving the manifestation of magic the illusion of being a creature that had a will of its own. Her horn was a-glow with blue once more, but then again, Celestia could recall when Luna's horn wasn't lit.
"Luna," she pleaded again. "Luna, I'm sorry, if you just go to Ponyville—"
"Quiet!" Luna hissed baring fangs. "Your pleading sister act will not work this time. Do you think I remember nothing about you? All you ever wanted was to be adored and to have a crown sit on your head."
"Oh Luna, I've changed! Please, you're my sister. By your stars, Luna, I don't w-want to fight you!"
Luna scowled and dodged the warmth of one of Celestia's light ribbons. Had she stayed in place, she could have destroyed it quite easily. With Celestia's waning will, her magic went with her.
"Please Luna!" Celestia sobbed, trying to make her choked breaths take the form of the name that felt like dust in her mouth — strange and foreign after centuries of going unused. This didn't go unnoticed to Luna, who looked upon Celestia with nothing but contempt that was clear in the dark. Moonlight reflected off her fangs, which glinted in the dark.
"Look at you — pretending to be different, to be like you were ages ago. Do you really think anypony who knew better could fall for your nice queen act now? You remember nothing! And look at all this—"
She cut herself off abruptly and flew over to Celestia, appearing to dissolve into the dark as she dived, with only the whooshing of wind and shine of sparkles in the dark to indicate where she was. When Luna was still in front of Celestia, the former recoiled at the sudden lack of any distance between them. She could feel the warmth of life from Luna despite how dark and cold she was, like the moon that was now free of scars in the sky.
Luna's eyes held no mercy, but Celestia didn't notice. She watched the edge of Luna's helm, so fitting for a cruel persona but not her baby sister. This wasn't, couldn't be her little baby sister. Her horn died, and the two of them were shrouded in gloom. Celestia couldn't will herself to reach out and grab her, to never let her baby sister go ever again. She needed her back. She wanted her back. It had to only be seconds passing, but each moment she had a harder time breathing and the bruises across her throat pained her felt like a miniature eternity that she could only spend focusing on Luna because no words would come, only her name on repeat in Celestia's mind.
Her Luna. Not the Luna of the moon, the Luna who sat forlornly upon the throne of old, not the Luna who vanished under darkness-
Luna didn't vanish. Luna was here. Luna was talking to her. Her Luna. Her Luna.
Luna. Luna. Luna. Luna.
She watched as runes flickered across her baby sister's helm and her wicked smile that bore so much resemblance to a snarl. And she watched Luna open her mouth...
...And she was speaking to her! Not fighting! She was talking to her sister again.
"Look at what you've done, Celestia." She said the name — her name — so that it hissed like acid. "You made the pretty little kingdom that was always yours in your image. You erased history! YOU ERASED ME! YOU FOOLISH, DESPERATE, AND BROKEN MARE! YOU COULDN'T GO A SINGLE DAY WITHOUT BEING ADORED AND LOVED AND SOMEHOW—"
Celestia drew back from Luna's screams. They rang in her ears, her being. They were broken screams and angry screams and she couldn't take the thought of Luna being hurt, not again.
"—SOMEHOW YOU'RE OKAY! WITHOUT ME YOU'VE BEEN DOING FINE!"
"I did it all for you! I helped them be better for you, for us! P-Please, Luna—"
Luna drew back her lip, her shimmering aura sparkling around her as she gave a snarl, one unlike anything Celestia had ever heard. It was like one thousand years alone delivered in one gesture that felt like it was freezing her from within. She looked up at Luna, for just one second they were still and looking at one another. Baleful eyes that could belong to no equine met watery magenta drained of all inner resolve. Celestia shakily held out her hoof in a gesture of everything she wanted to be better between them. In the split second she thought she saw Luna smile at her gesture of sisterhood, Celestia felt an ember of hope stir in the ashes within her.
It died the moment Luna lunged, and the world shattered with it.
...
Under the sun's surface was an agonizing place to be, and that was for a goddess as Celestia was. She knew that no mortal could survive this great burning. It was even worse than when Luna had pulled her physical form apart with all the power that the iridescent cloud of aura gave her. Fire ripped through every part of her near-shattered being that could withstand the heat through divinity and the sun's connection to her. Though she was the master of the great ball of fire, she was no longer in a position to mover her solar pawn when her very existence and her sister's power weighed her sun below the horizon.
And there was the chance it might not be seen again...
Fire scorched Celestia's disembodied and anchored soul at the thought. Her entire being tried to reel away in pain, but only sank further into pain and heat. That false stardust - wherever Luna had gotten it, the stuff had enabled her to forge such a place as the prison of the tyrant king was forged without the aid of the Elements.
Would she be here too long to help her little ponies? How much of her mind would be left when and if she did get out? She didn't know and she didn't try to know. There was no hope. Celestia had never been the kind to earnestly believe in hope or faith. She believed in pawns and kings, rooks, and mages — all things that were so far away. Would Luna kill to meet her goal? It was not unlikely, before her banishment — a time that felt farther away with each torrent of pain that ripped through Celestia — she had been a skilled warrior and an even better mage. What would a life mean to Luna now? Celestia acknowledged no ignorance or uncertainty on her part, but let the questions echo through her even if they were to be unanswered.
The Summer Celebration was her last chance. She had bought time for the only two who might be what it takes.
There was Cadance, compassionate, and pure-hearted. The love she shared with her fiancé, Shining Armor, would no doubt see them through great struggles in the future. She may not have had the potential of a Faithful Student, but if any could lead ponies with the things she taught it would be loving, extroverted, and caring Cadance. She wasn't marked as any of the keys Celestia would need, but she was a true princess of Equestria. Ponies would follow her if the time for her to be a leader ever came.
And then there was Twilight Sparkle.
She had been groomed her entire life for this purpose, though she didn't know. The moment Celestia saw her mark she knew she had found the perfect pawn for her newest Faithful Student. Celestia knew that she would be the one to act as a vessel for the Spark of Magic. From that day when Celestia saw her as a little filly — and that amazing mark! — she had begun to plan the life of Twilight Sparkle in order to bring her to this point. She became a favored companion, impressionable, humble, and eager to work with Celestia and impress her. Trusting.
She was the key, and a key Celestia had forged herself.
But she was so far away, farther than ever, moving onward in relative ignorance of the situation, as was planned.
And Celestia, through the fire that tore at her, managed to envision the quaint village of Ponyville, though she had only been there once or twice before her divinity kept the memory of the location crystal clear.
She imagined Twilight trotting through the town square, with Spike at her side.
Please, Twilight...
Hurry...