~*~
I wish I could ask you these questions more directly, and I wish I could hear you answer. But I still feel compelled to ask you... do they teach children nowadays about the time where the sun went away? When we were all plunged deeply into darkness? Or has the world forgotten what we went through by now? For all I know, the sun is gone again now, and you're reading this by candlelight. If that's the case, please know that I could have prevented that from happening to you. I could have washed away any chance of an endless night.
In case no one told you, let me put it simply. I would give you more detail but it's... a hard set of memories for me. I've already given you pieces of them, and you'll have to forge them together yourself if you want to get a good look at the image.
One of our rulers was in charge of the night, and she brought up the moon each evening. But somehow, she grew bitter about this duty, and took the sun from us for days and days upon end. We were bathed in darkness, and those creatures that stayed meek in the shadows were free to run rampant over us constantly, unchecked by daylight. We could not leave our homes. We could not do our work. The whole world screeched to a grinding halt without the sun, and we were frozen in time, just waiting for it to come back. I remember what it was like to open my eyes, expecting to see the morning light, and to instead find that there was only black outside my window. The roosters ceased to crow. I think they gave up hope sooner than we did.
It may have been a week before things changed, maybe two, it was hard to tell the passage of time without the day and the night to guide us. But once that week was gone, the night had taken ponies into it, enveloped them, swallowed them. And they were just gone. My brother was gone. Our other ruler may have found a way to restore the sun and the light, but she could not restore those we had already lost to her sister's childish tantrum.
I'll be fair, and admit that she did punish her sister. But it was just to send her away. Put the problem as far away as possible, on the moon. Every night, we felt fear that day would not return, and we'd have to look up at the moon to see her there, staring down at us, knowing what she'd done. It haunted us like memories of laughs cut short, eyes forever closed. Our now only ruler had done nothing to prevent this sort of horrible thing from happening again. She'd put the culprit in time out, like a spoiled child rather than a murderer.
It was not enough. It was never enough, not for many of us. Not for me.
But at that point, I had no power to do anything to help. I had no way to take matters into my own hooves, to ensure that this dark force would be stopped. And why did it take so long to stop it, anyway? Why did it happen in the first place? None of us had any answers, any say, any ability in this. We simply had to nod our heads and let things happen the way they happened.
I couldn't take that anymore.
When I came across these supposedly powerful words, these magic materials, I knew that I had found a way to make myself stronger than just a simple earth pony. Maybe... I could even get enough power to rival that of a princess. When I realized this, I vowed that never again would this occur. I wouldn't let it. I vowed that no more ponies would die in darkness, waiting for someone to relight the sun, unsure when or even if that would happen. I would fix this, permanently, at all costs.
And there were many costs.