Luna stepped out onto a balcony, decorated in unique styles, considering her history. It not only had the moon, the stars, and her profile decorating it, but also the sign of the sun. In pairs with her own sign, and in equal prominence. The balcony was old. In fact, the stones had traveled from the Castle of the Two Sisters, so far away. The castle she’d ruled from before Canterlot even existed, the entire city she now looked over had been a thought, a tiny settlement clinging to the side of a mountain, daring each earthquake to wipe it from the face of the earth.
Then, due to the heartache of walking familiar halls without Celestia and without her Castelian of that age who was the closest thing she had to a partner, Luna had abandoned the ancient castle, and let the forest reclaim it. She had moved her life, the five thousand ponies around her, and several pieces of that castle all the way to the Canterlot mountains where she made Canterlot city a reality.
She’d crafted metal anchors a hundred feet long, and mounted them into the hardest rock. She’d used magic to fuse each stone together, so that the foundation of the city was as firm as any upon the ground. She’d worked complex magic so that if the worst was ever to pass, the city would still not fall, but instead would float in place for hours, giving the citizens time to escape, and after all of that work she’d mounted her old balcony onto the tallest tower, and refused to answer questions as to why it held such significance to her.
She knew the answer would only anger others, or hurt them.
For the balcony was where she had first set the moon, alongside her sister, who had raised the sun. All those who saw it assumed the profiles were of her, but in fact the side-facing profiles of a horned pony were depicting the Lost Unicorns. Hundreds of unicorns who would ascend to the balcony each day, and give up their magic to give the world one more day of light. Their magic, forever blackened. Their horns, sometimes even shattered. To give the world the sun.
The moon, was almost an afterthought. But if only those unicorns had known, that the moon was a balance, and like carrying two pails on a long stick it is ever so much easier to heave upon one’s shoulders when they are matched, instead of alone.
Hundreds of unicorns could have been spared, if they had focused on harmonizing the two, instead of letting the moon drift freely.
She breathed slow, deep, and let her emotions fade. They wouldn’t help her do what she had to do, after all. It was nearly Dusk and ponies were beginning to wake, court would begin soon, the night held so much to do.
Her horn lit, and unlike every other magic she pulled upon, she felt the silvery light spill over her face and neck like cool water. Not an effort, but a blessing from above bestowed upon her.
It was foolish, she knew. It was a skill. Practiced and practical, but the romance of the thought, of the moon anointing her, was too pleasing to abandon even after seven hundred years of life.
Her magic swept out from her, invisible to all but Vivid if she was paying attention, and it touched on the moon so far away like a breeze brushing against a bell. It resonated.
Then, with a bit of effort she pulled it above the horizon in a slow arc before turning her attention to the other. The one that was not hers to control.
Heat in her heart, and anger. She almost screamed, just like every time she touched the sun. She couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t feel anything but rage. She knew, it was her sister’s heart she grasped and not her own. So she buried the snarl that rose to her lips, and she wrenched the sun from it’s resting spot. Slowly, it responded. Burning down, towards the opposite horizon from which the moon was rising. It was as though she was watching a star fall in slow motion, and despite knowing she’d done her part properly she imagined the sun impacting the earth, and a great wall of fire consuming everything alive.
Not for the first time, she remembered the calculation. Four hundred more years. She had only four hundred more years before her sister would return, and no clue how to prevent her return from being a disaster.
She slowed her breathing, hung her head, and let the heat fade as Dusk passed, and Night began.
“Bring me a copy of the dusk paper, and my breakfast in my study,” she said to her guard as she exited the balcony and stepped back into the castle, which felt so much more at home when the halls were lit by moonlight and magical crystals along the walls, instead of the bring glare of the sun.
“Yes, your Highness,” the pegasus disguised as a bat-winged Thestral, as all her guards were in respect to her original honor guard, said with a nod. “What would you like for breakfast?”
Luna paused. It wasn’t a question she was used to, as she typically receive whatever the chef felt like making. She wondered if this particular guard was new, but decided to play along.
“Well, whatever the chef is making will be fine, though please bring me tea as well, I don’t like that new ground bean juice he seems fascinated with.”
“Of course,” he replied before ducking away and heading off into the castle. Leaving Luna with one of her other guards as they resumed their walk towards the study.
She noticed that the other guard seemed just as surprised at the question, and decided that indeed it must be a new guard, before putting it out of her mind.
Her study had evolved over the years, from a simple stone room with a desk, to a place she could feel comfortable delving into the depths of history, legislation, philosophy, or even spending time with Vivid if she so chose. It had been a year and a half since Vivid’s discovery of Alicornium in a farmer’s field, and consecutive collapse. She’d recovered swiftly, and they had led somewhat separate lives since then, though still meeting at court sessions where Vivid was needed, and at Dawn before going to sleep. It was a hectic life with their desires for time together constantly under threat from all sides, the church that Vivid was forming taking a great deal of personal attention to guide in the correct direction, and away from Princess Sunlight Sol Howl’s angry rhetoric.
The day Luna had received her resignation from the Archway mages, she’d known it wouldn’t keep her out of trouble, and had almost considered refusing the resignation, but she had no good reason to do so. Then, almost as though Luna had predicted it, Howl had gone to the streets and formed her own church, opposing the reasoned and graceful fine that Vivid’s own church had started to spread.
Anger always was such a wonderful motivator, Luna knew, but she couldn’t step in the middle of this particular conflict. She would have to let her ponies sort it out between themselves.
She sat at her desk and admired the plush rugs which had been brought in from far away lands, and the floor to ceiling bookshelves, packed full of books and other trinkets. At least Howl couldn’t take this away from her. Luna still ruled Equestria, and despite her past, her ponies looked up to her. She did not have to fear them abandoning her.
“Your breakfast.”
Luna looked up as that same new guard laid the silver tray of food on her desk in front of her, still steaming.
“That was… quick,” Luna noted as she watched the guard move back to his spot next to the door, before she took the cover off, and removed the teacup to sip it.
On the tray lay a decent enough meal for the ruler of a country, poached eggs on some sort of bread with basil, tomato, and a sauce over it all. There were also slices of some sort of fruit, and a few leaves of spinach in a dressing. She wondered in the chef put spinach in all her dishes because he knew she didn’t care for it, or if it was just coincidence since lettuce was often seen as too plain to serve a princess.
She ate the tiny spinach salad first, before quickly eating the rest of the food, and setting the tray aside.
“Tell the chef I approve,” she said as she pulled out a stack of scrolls and began unrolling them all, so she could begin reviewing their contents.
A full half of them were from Yakistan, a country they had only recently come into contact with, in the frozen north, who were by far the most pretentious and traditionalist bunch she’d ever met. Each diplomat, head of state, and noble had sent their own scroll, detailing their own demands, and introducing themselves. She would then be expected to compose an individual response to each of them, as well as have her diplomats do the same, multiplying the number of replying documents exponentially.
She laid her head on the desk, and sighed. She didn’t want to be filling out diplomatic letters. Not in the slightest. Luckily, she had a large list of other things she could do until she was in the right mood to write for eight hours straight.
“Read for me the List of Pastimes,” she said with a wave of her hoof towards the guards.
The new guard practically snatched the scroll from the other, who glared at him as he read it aloud.
“Supervise the restoration of old paintings. Oversee the harvesting of the Lavender gardens. Visit Wishing Star at the Archway. Appoint a new judge to the pegasus city of Cloudsdale. Visit the Church of Celestial Grace--”
“Ah!” Luna said as she stood quickly, picking up her tea as she put her crown back on. “The church, yes. I’ll visit the church. You can go back to check in with the captain, I’ll only need one guard for this little trip,” she said as she pointed to the new guard, getting a wonderfully crestfallen look out of him before he gave the scroll back to the other, and left.
“Thank you, your highness,” the remaining guard mumbled as she stowed the scroll.
“No need to mention it,” Luna scoffed. “He… was being a bit odd. Your name is… Lyra, yes?”
“Lyra Major, your highness,” the guardsmare nodded.
“I’d like you to be my personal guard for the next few days, I’ve seen you around but I’d like to have somepony whose name I actually remember for once,” Luna said as she left her study, locking the door behind her. “It’s quite tiring to always be learning new names and forgetting them, if I’m honest.”
“I would be honored to serve in your personal guard,” Lyra said with a bit more bounce in her trot.
“Good. I have a good feeling about tonight.”
They left the castle and made their way down the wide main street of Canterlot, nodding to the ponies they passed, and giving them permission to rise if they had bowed. Halfway between the castle’s fence and the empty courtyard the marked the cliff-like edge of Canterlot, a church was under construction. Nearly complete, only the bell-tower at the height of the roof remained unbuilt.
“Don’t worry, it’s ceremonial, I won’t actually ring it at midday,” Vivid said as she stepped out of the brass-clad doors, smiling warmly.
“I would hope not, the complaints would be many, and likely tied to stones through the church window,” Luna replied with a similar smile as Vivid approached and they embraced.
They were not public in their affections, but the embrace was something excusable for any noble, and court mage certainly was a noble title.
Vivid still wore her grey cloak and circlet, marking her as part of the Archway, and Luna still admired the way her white eyes seemed to shimmer with magic as she perceived the world in a way Luna had only been able to witness in Vivid’s dreams.
“It is coming along quite nicely though,” Luna added as they turned and entered the church.
She always had to pause as she saw her sister’s visage portrayed in stained glass above the altar. So young looking, so calm. Such a stark contrast to what Luna experienced when she touched the sun each Dusk and Dawn.
But she pushed past painful memories and entered the bright place.
Unlike the cool blue light in the castle, lamps lit the brass, gold, and white of the temple. The walls hung with white cloth to hide the tan plaster, and brass fittings turned the end of every chair leg, the edge of every pillar, and the outline of each table into warm molten light. It was almost enough for Luna to miss being awake during the day, until she remembered how incredibly hot this temple would be at midday in summer. She preferred a cold night to a hot day, and also was of the opinion that the whole temple looked nicer lit by lamps at night, than it would lit by sunlight during the day. But she was biased, she knew.
“Where on earth did you find so much brass?” Luna asked in amusement.
“A new settlement called Appleloosa, to the south,” Vivid said as she sat down in the little alcove set aside for the priestess of the church.
Luna sat quite close to her, now that they were more private. “They have been able to mine the area?”
“Yes, though only after some significant struggles with the local Buffalo population,” Vivid sighed. “I’m still not entirely certain whether the merchant was honest when she told me that they eventually reached an agreement. The issue seems too complex to just resolve itself.”
“You can always trust on ponies far from the cities to do whatever they want under the guise of surviving,” Luna sighed. “But I’ll at least look into it.”
She looked to her guard, who quickly wrote it down so she wouldn’t forget. She then looked back to Vivid.
“Maybe one of these nights I’ll stay awake long enough to attend your morning services.”
“Oh please,” Vivid chuckled. “You’d fall asleep during the prayers. You belong in the night, Luna. Don’t force yourself, just because I go to sleep at midnight, instead of midmorning.”
“Yes, well it would be most amusing for your congregation, to watch their princess snore during somber prayers,” Luna said with a smirk.
“Amusing, but a bit against the atmosphere of reflection we are trying to cultivate,” Vivid said with only a hint of scolding behind her smile. “I could always reenact our services for you.”
“Aaah, no thank you,” Luna replied, looking away as she bit her lip. “I have a feeling that I’d much rather spend our time not talking about my sister.”
“That’s fair.”
Vivid’s gentle touch to Luna’s back calmed her down immediately, and she put a wing around the smaller pony.
“You haven’t asked about her. Through all this.”
“Well,” Vivid said as she took a slow breath, seriousness coming back to her bearing. “One of the first books I read from that chest you gave me was the account of the Daybreaker. I… You don’t need to relive that for anypony, Luna. You shouldn’t be made to even think of it.”
“A princess is expected to be dispassionate,” Luna said dourly. “To calmly and without emotion lead her nation into the future. I should be able to speak of it whenever asked.”
“And for all we know you are!” Vivid objected. “But why put you through that trauma, just to prove your worthiness? You are already worthy, my love.”
Luna’s cheeks reddened, and she pulled Vivid a little closer, glad they were not in public. “Well… Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you, Vivid. I suppose I needed to hear that.”
“You need to hear a lot of things,” Vivid said, smirking and prodding Luna a little in the ribs. “But I think that many of them will have to wait for you to grow up a bit more.”
Luna mock-gasped, still smiling. “I’m seven hundred years old, how much more growing up could I possibly do?”
“Oh a vast amount,” Vivid continued, acting as though she was talking down to a child, though they were still both smiling at the whole situation, of a pony admonishing her princess for immaturity. “For only one example, have you yet assigned yourself an assistant? A proper assistant? Your Castilian has told me that you haven’t had a proper assistant for near a hundred years, since her position was made administrative. You may think you can soldier on, without help, but the mature princess would recruit an assistant.”
“It’s on the list of things to do,” Luna objected, looking only slightly cross. “I haven’t forgotten.”
Vivid looked to the guard, because she knew better. “Where on the list is it?”
Lyra grinned as she pulled out the scroll and unrolled it, looking quickly to confirm what she already knew. “Second from the bottom, m’lady.”
Vivid smugly crossed her forelegs and looked to Luna, who had the decency to look embarrassed.
“Alright, alright. I shall find myself an assistant. Now am I mature, Madam Colour?” she asked.
“Not quite yet, there’s also the matter of your own church.”
At that, the fun and smiling was abruptly over, for Luna, and she retracted her wing. “I do not have a church, Vivid,” she said sternly.
Vivid held up her hooves in a gesture of surrender. “Very well, I won’t mention it again.”
But the subject had been broached, and Luna knew that she wouldn’t be able to feel comfortable again until she addressed it.
“Where did you find out about that cult?” Luna asked, still frowning.
Vivid stood, and began to walk. Luna followed.
She went down into the basement of the church, which made Luna quite nervous, and then she was into a second level of the basement, which Luna thought really is not a good sign. If anypony takes you to a basement below their basement, they’re likely plotting your demise, or looking to trap you to torture you about how irresponsible you are.
A final door revealed a small natural cavern, that must have been formed when the first foundations of Canterlot were laid against the side of the mountain. Inside was a simple shrine, over which hung a silvery sphere marked with every crater of the moon in perfect detail, a few mage lights hung on string around it gave it a glow.
Near to the altar, sitting on chairs and seeming to have been interrupted mid-sentence, were four mares in black robes, who were staring at Luna as though she was about to strike them down. Around each of their necks was a silver crescent moon on a chain.
To be fair, a hundred years before, she had come across a similar room, and their fear had been justified. Her reaction had been to burn their books, wreck the place, and exile the practitioners.
But now Vivid was watching, and somehow that changed the equation vastly.
“Hello,” Luna said, as she buried her rage and indignity as deeply as she could, and attempted to sound untroubled.
The four immediately got off their chairs and bowed low, which only aggravated Luna further.
But Vivid seemed to have a hoof on the situation, as she turned back to the others and clicked her tongue. “Come on now, she’s used to being treated like that by everypony else. Like we talked about, you have to show that you’re not fanatics.”
The four stood and nervously stepped forward, looking very very nervous.
“I thought you’d… Tell us, let us prepare,” the lead mare said softly as she stood next to Vivid.
“And give you more time to set up decorations, prepare some elaborate ritual, and make it a thousand times more awkward? No. No overthinking it, none of that. You lot need to grow up, and treat eachother like grown adults who can interact with eachother without looking and sounding like a cult.”
One of the mares in the back cleared her throat and everyone looked to her, making her practically cower in her robes. “Um… Definition of a cult, a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object… We are a cult. Definitionally.”
“Not helping,” Vivid said simply before looking back to Luna. “They’re awkward, and weird, and they don’t know how to talk to other ponies without coming across as creepy. But they’ve got good hearts and they want to find a way to help, instead of sitting in a cave and praying all the time.”
“Isn’t that basically all a religion does?” Luna asked in a voice dripping with sarcasm. “Sit around and pray? It should be the pinnacle of achievement for a religious individual, to sit, and to pray, endlessly.”
Vivid reached over, and slapped Luna’s leg. “You’re being purposefully dense and mean, to try and fulfill your own prejudgments. Give them a chance.”
Luna sighed. But she couldn’t dismiss Vivid. She couldn’t dismiss the points she was making, or the fact that these four mares had worshipped her despite the threat of exile, and were still standing in front of her. Maybe… Maybe they would be willing to change, so she wouldn’t dislike them so much.
“Fine. I'll give them a chance to reform,” Luna decided. “But I'm not acknowledging them publicly.”
“Why… why do you want us reformed?” The leader asked Luna. “what have we done wrong that needs to be corrected?”
Luna looked among the group before looking to Lyra, who was doing her job and watching the cultists for signs of danger, while pretending not to hear anything they spoke about. She then walked to where the chairs were, sitting between the mares and the altar, quite purposefully. Their model of the moon felt comfortable to her, and she wanted to be closer to it.
Once she sat down, she asked a question to the group.
“What is my title?”
“Her Royal Majesty, Queen Luna of Equestria, sovereign of the moon, stars, and dreams. Keeper of secrets and rightful heir of the midnight p--”
Luna struck the ground with her hoof, making the four mares jolt in surprise.
“No. My title is Her Royal Highness, Princess Luna of Equestria. That's it. Nothing more.”
“But… you are the sovereign of the stars, moon, and dreams!” One of the quieter ones objected.
“Certainly, but it is not something I wish to trumpet. Besides, Queen has been a tyrannical term since the days of Discord, Sombra, and the dragon queen. I will not be a tyrant, and I will accept my title as Princess,” Luna decreed, as she stood and began to pace side to side. “No mention of the Midnight pact should ever be made, either! It is the most glaring rotted stain upon my past, and I will forever wish I'd destroyed the evidence of it after that night.”
The four were sitting quietly, looking chagrined. But the leader seemed determined to continue a conversation.
“We will do these things… your Highness. But we don't understand why you have so much shame regarding the Pact. It was a reasonable last resort…”
Luna’s glare stopped her from continuing, then Luna looked to Vivid who seemed concerned.
“You've never heard of the pact, specifically because I buried mention of it,” Luna told Vivid. “It's one of the reasons I did not approve of this religious group. They misunderstand it, and would make it public.”
“Well, what is it?” Vivid asked while walking closer, frowning.
Luna groaned, rubbing the side of her head with one hoof before speaking.
“Before Daybreaker rose, I had become so determined that the ponies were neglecting me, and my position was being ignored, that I decided I needed a way to force them into admiring me. I created a pact, a magical seal of sorts which I would be able to break in order to bond myself to the darkness of all the nightmares I had been curing from our ponies’ sleep for so many years. It was a source of power I could then use to seize control of the throne. It was a rash, impetuous, immature plan which I am thankful I never enacted.”
She looked at the cultists, still frowning. “They have come across this history in a twisted form, and believe that the midnight pact was benevolent, and justified. That finding the pact would increase my power and help me shape the world as I see fit. Something I oppose.”
“But what is it,” Vivid repeated. “You keep avoiding the question.”
Luna scowled before lifting the cloth covering off the altar, spreading it wide to show a hexagonal design with symbols forming a circle around the edge and a full moon in the middle, magical symbols forming the craters on its surface.
“This, basically, but made of gemstone fused into a solid block, about four hooves wide. I don’t want it found, so I refrain from describing it.”
“You mean you don’t know where it is?” Vivid asked, aghast. “A thing that stores a great deal of power but could alter you in a way you don’t want is just… out there? Lost somewhere?”
“I entrusted it to a guardian, who hid it away. I didn’t want to know where it was, and once he died, I assumed it lost completely,” Luna nodded. “So no. I don’t know where it is, and I don’t want anyone else to either.”
Vivid looked to the cultists, frowning a little. “And you all have been searching for this Pact for a long time. Why?”
“I guess… We thought the princess would reward us if we restored her power… At least, that’s what the old books say.”
“The creature that would be created by that power would reward you,” Luna sighed, shaking her head. “It would… remake me, full of that anger and pain. I don’t want to be that creature. Especially now that I must care for Equestria. Please, give up this quest. I will find something for you to seek, some new quest, and I will respect your admiration for me, so long as you do not seek the pact.”
The four looked between themselves before the leader stepped forward and bowed. The other three did the same, and some great weight was lifted from Luna’s back as she realized that she could use these four ponies to do good, instead of fighting against them constantly.
She looked to Vivid, smiling. Vivid had made this possible. She returned Luna’s smile, and Luna felt like all was right with the world, for a short time.