"It would appear the forbidden section is in dire need of organization, dear sister."
"When you consider the only ponies with the magic to access this area is me - and now you - is it really surprising it is a mess?" I replied.
Luna continued scanning the shelves that lined the room - my own secret stash of writings that were not to ever see light of day again. It was a private collection few knew existed, and one that I had requested in the early stages of Canterlot Castle's design stages. Of course, I had not mentioned my intentions for it, but the room was an addendum to my own personal chambers, with a small staircase the only access point. In fact, my magic was the only one that could activate the hidden door.
However, I never got around to any sort of organization - my life was much to busy to tend to a mass of books that were to not exist other than in my possession, whether it be due to forbidden magic practices or rituals, or even sensitive subject matter. Instead, these writings were jammed rather haphazardly into the shelves in any space they could fit. Even so, the table and chairs in the center of the room still held piles of dusty, unorganized tomes, artifacts of a bygone era.
"We must say, it was our expectation to find at least some sort of order. We do not recall the archives in the former castle being in such disrepair," she mused, picking up an open book lying on the table. As the blue aura of her magic tipped the book to free it from the layers of dust upon its pages, the binding gave out, discarding the pages into a pile that immediately dissolved into a fine powder.
"Tis our most sincere hope that book did not contain valuable knowledge that is now lost to time," Luna muttered, her bright teal eyes widened in horror as they stared at the remnants of the manuscript.
Gently, I seized the cover of the book from my sister's magical grasp, levitating it over to me at eye level while I made out the faded text upon the front cover.
The Disastrous First Century of Princess Celestia's Monarchy
"Nope, just heresy," I responded calmly, tossing the remains into the fireplace and igniting it with a quick spell.
"That is a relief," Luna sighed. "Since we are in a secluded area, do you mind if we 'stretch our wings,' so to speak?"
I nodded my confirmation, as Luna's petite form once again gave off a familiar glow, quickly returning to a size matching my own until the light faded, and a black alicorn stood in the library with me.
"Heavens above, we cannot begin to describe how much more comfortable this form is than the facade we are forced to endure," she said, extending a hind leg out behind herself in an exaggerated motion.
While the first week was admittedly difficult facing Luna in this form, it had gotten much easier as time passed. Even so, I would be almost as thrilled as my sister when we finally found a solution.
However, with almost a month of searching behind us, the source material with which to direct our attention was becoming more obscure. Hence our turn to the documents and writings otherwise hidden from prying eyes due to their possible dangerous nature. It was a collection that fortunately had not seen much growth in recent years.
There had to be something somewhere that could help Luna regain her form before this nightmare began.
Sorry about the pun.
"Your student, Twilight Sparkle. You say she is a voracious reader, why not have her aid us in this quest for answers?" Luna suggested, skimming her eyes along the nearest bookcase. "After all, she did save us from continuing our cycle of maniacal self-destruction, surely she can be trusted."
"While I applaud your thinking, I really don't believe dark magic and necromancy are subjects a blossoming mind should be absorbing," I replied, cringing at the mere thought of my pupil discovering this trove of corruption material.
"Yet you consider us to be trustworthy? A pony that escaped from exile after a prior attempt at usurping power, only to pursue that abhorrent goal again?"
Her response did not surprise me in the slightest, as I continued to peruse the shelf in front of me for something to catch my eye. Written history would make ponies think otherwise, but Luna had historically been the more logic-oriented of the two of us. No matter the situation, my little sister would more often than not look beyond the emotions stirred up and give a complete, objective opinion, even if it was to the detriment of herself or her goals.
Odd, I know. One would just expect her to be the bratty sister, being the younger sibling. Though she had that covered from time to time.
"That's how I know I can trust you, sis. Despite everything we've gone through, you remain objective in thought."
"I merely lay out the scenario before us in black and white, Tia. Nothing more," she replied nonchalantly, pulling a few dusty leatherbound books off a higher shelf.
"Well, you're certainly making progress with your speech. I believe that's the first time you've used 'I' to refer to yourself," I chirped back, pleasantly surprised.
"Indeed, but it is still a long journey before we find ourselves completely fluent in modern dialogue. Still, my point stands, it is our hope you are not misplacing your trust in me."
"Oh, I'm not concerned. You've already been bested twice," I said in a teasing tone. In an instant, Luna whirled around to face me.
"That is hardly appropriate, dear sister," she said, her stare icy cold. I briefly considered my light jab to be out of order, until she turned up her nose, closing her eyes.
"It is said the third attempt is often imbued with a mysterious blessing that results in success," she quickly shot back.
"You mean 'third time's a charm'? That is just an overused saying, Luna. It has no basis in fact."
"Yet, my second attempt was successful in besting you, was it not?"
I could not believe what I was hearing at this point. We're we really going to argue about this?
"You're kidding, right? Sister, you 'bested' me as I overslept due to a malfunctioning alarm clock. I would hardly consider that a victory."
Luna quickly shook her head in defiance. "The details matter not, it is the results that are counted."
"Okay, then the second time around, you were defeated by six fillies. That's rather embarrassing."
At once, Luna snapped to attention, her eyes wide with astonishment. "Only because they possessed the Elements of Harmony, dear sister!"
"Ah, but the details do not matter, only the end result," I replied, a smirk upon my face. Luna remained silent for a time, mulling over my retort as she searched for a way out of this.
"We will purge this conversation from our memory if thou likewise does the same," Luna mumbled, finally giving up.
"I thought you might see things my way," I said with a slight chuckle. Likewise, Luna lightened up, offering a small burst of laughter.
"Regardless of how it occurred, I feel most fortunate to have been defeated," she replied. "Otherwise, we would not be in this position to make amends with our sibling. But do tell, dost thou have an idea of what we are looking for amongst this collection? Certainly, it is understood the final goal is that of a transformation or reversion spell, but that is quite vague."
"Not exactly," I said, trailing off with a bit of uncertainty as I glanced around. "What little knowledge I have of such spells has been gained through time and experience, and our 'normal' library did not gain us anything new. If we're going to stumble upon something that offers a more permanent fix, it's likely going to come from some sort of forbidden magic or ritual. I have some limited experience with dark magic, but not enough to help us right now."
My sister did a double take as she herself began flipping through a leatherbound book. "Thou hast practiced dark magic? The one thing thou so vehemently opposed back in the time we both ruled?"
I felt my face grow warm, embarrassed by my own opinions long ago being repeated back to me.
"Yes, I know I was very much against such practices, and I have not dabbled in them at all in several years. I still believe such corruptive power to be dangerous," I admitted, clarifying my stance to my now skeptical sibling, whose gaze beheld a solemn and judgmental wariness. "But with you gone, the Elements no longer worked, and there were still adversaries who wished to spread harm and mischief across the land. I did what I had to in order to thwart such threats."
"So that was why thou abandoned the Elements in the old castle," Luna mused, relaxing just a bit. "But why build a new Castle when the old one was suitable?"
I blinked, waiting for Luna to break into laughter or smile, something to prove she was joking. Yet she remained straight-faced and quiet, waiting for my answer.
"Did you not notice the gaping hole in the roof? Or the damaged pillars? Of course, it has deteriorated further as the years have gone by but there was no repairing the grave structural damage you caused," I said, not mincing words.
"To be fair, it was both of us that caused damage, sister," Luna replied.
"Regardless, it was time to move our residence, at that point in time, the Everfree Forest was becoming quite feral. But as for the Elements of Harmony, I had considered bringing them with me, had they not turned into paperweights. I could sense no magic within them, I assumed it had all been expelled by my sole use. Clearly, as Twilight Sparkle and her friends demonstrated, that was not the case."
As I finished the impromptu history lesson, Luna's teal eyes lit up with inspiration, barely waiting for me to finish before speaking up.
"Of course sister, the Elements of Harmony!" she shouted with excitement. "The magic within them has reverted me once, surely they are able to do it again!"
"Luna, have you lost your mind? Why would you subject yourself to another rainbow blast?" I asked, my voice involuntarily raising as I spoke. "Besides that absurd idea if it were to even be considered, who is to say the outcome would be the same? It never has been in the past."
Both of us fell silent, Luna looking rather uneasy with my harsh criticism I had served her. But it didn't take long before she turned her back to me, focusing on the shelf behind her as one by one, she pulled out and glanced at the aged collection.
"Luna, I didn't mean to be that blunt, I just don't think it's a good idea," I apologized. But my sister remained steadfast in her search, as if she had not heard me. Cautiously, I shuffled over to her side, in an attempt to get her to notice, with no luck.
"Sister, I'm sorry."
"Yes, your apology was heard the first time. We were not offended, merely inspired with another idea," she replied, her voice monotonous as her focus remained on her search.
"Care to elaborate? I won't be so rude."
"Perhaps within these shelves is contained an instruction manual for the Elements."
"Okay, I have to say, that might be even dumber than your original idea."
*Thunk!*
Pain lanced through my head as something struck me, my vision momentarily clouding over as I recoiled back by pure instinct. As the stars I was seeing cleared up, my focus turned to the floor, finding a large book that was not there a moment ago, my likely assailant.
"Apologies, sister. In my current vapid state of mind, my magic must have failed fully handling that book," Luna said quietly. As I looked up to her, she was trying very hard not to smile, keeping her face buried into her current book as much as possible.
I admit, I probably deserved that.
Three hours had passed by, and the search through my private collection had bore no fruit. In that span of time, almost a quarter of the reading material I possessed had been exhausted, and I felt rather pessimistic about our chances finding something in the remaining books, even if it was well over a majority.
"Tia, have we considered changeling magic?" Luna spoke up as I tossed my last book into the 'no' pile.
"I'm not really sure what you're getting at," I replied, scanning the shelves for something, anything to catch my eye. "Yes, changelings can change their form as their special sort of magic ability, but that's basically what you're doing now."
"It was merely an idea to toss out, we found a book with limited knowledge on the creatures," Luna commented, keeping her voice low. Evidently, my frustration was getting the best of me, and my sister looked quite taken aback and intimidated by my last comment. "I thought it perhaps possible to imbue an item with the magic of a changeling, thereby only needing a spark of my magic to allow a transformation to occur."
"No, I understand, I didn't mean to snap at you. This is just more frustrating than I was expecting. It's a rather good idea, if one could find a changeling."
"By the sounds of it, the creatures are not near as common as they once were."
I shook my head somewhat forlornly. "No, their raids upon pony settlements were intolerable, and over the years their numbers were slowly squashed out. I personally am unable to recall the last report of changelings."
"'Squashing them out' is an... interesting term to use," Luna noted, her face betraying the disgust she felt over such a phrase.
"I don't mean that in the literal sense, Luna. The mess that would cause would be a headache to clean up. Trust me."
"Right," Luna said, still rather unsettled. "However, we may be better suited to approaching this problem from another angle, as this path seems to be a dead end."
"I'm listening," I said, signaling for her to continue.
"Considering we have once been reverted to our normal form, the solution to the problem could be within the cause itself. Something had to have triggered the transformation back into this form I had been in previously." As she spoke, my sister rose off the floor back to her hooves, levitating the rather large mass of manuscripts we had rejected back onto the shelves one by one. I likewise joined her attempts to tidy up as I mulled over her suggestion.
It was an intriguing idea, though it was hard to contemplate how exactly to narrow down the culprits. Luna had been in her younger form for about a week; clearly, the trigger had to be somewhere in that time frame. But that is where the simplicity ended.
Or, perhaps the same trigger could be placed both in that week, as well as before her banishment...
"Sister, how have you been feeling since your return to - er, normal life?" I asked, tiptoeing around the subject matter a bit. At once, Luna's head snapped to me, surprised by my inquiry.
"It has been somewhat difficult, but I feel progress has been made. While the concern is appreciated, is there a particular reason you have suddenly asked?"
"Well, have you been feeling... do you have doubts? In everything going somewhat back to normal? Not necessarily back to the way it was, of course, I just mean-"
"Of course we have our doubts," Luna bluntly interjected. "After having failed once in controlling our emotions and allowing jealousy to cloud judgment, would it not be expected to have some concerns regarding our capabilities? Would it not be more concerning to have no reservations in returning to such an esteemed and demanding position?"
As she spoke, Luna's voice grew increasingly louder, in tune with her imposing black wings unfurling themselves until they were spread out wide on either side above her, overshadowing her form like a specter slowly creeping in from the dark abyss.
"So... you aren't quite comfortable and confident in yourself, I gather?" I quietly chimed in, my eyes motioning back and forth between my sister's face and her wings that all too well announced her agitation and excitement. She quickly took note of my shifting gaze, turning her head to see what was the matter before blushing profusely. Quickly she folded in her appendages.
"We - I suppose I have my doubts regarding my self-control due to my past actions, yes," she admitted in a hushed tone, hanging her head a bit.
"Luna, there's nothing to be ashamed of, to have some worries about adjustment back to life after what you have been through is normal -though I suppose the circumstances are a bit unique."
"That doesn't really help, Tia," Luna replied, likely due to my last comment. I shook my head, trying to free my mind of the sudden lapse in thought.
"Sorry. But I have to wonder, maybe you have done this to yourself, Luna. Not on purpose of course, but your emotions changed you once before, maybe that is the catalyst for the current issue."
"If your hypothesis is correct, what hope do we have to revert back to our normal form?"
"I have to note that kind of an attitude isn't going to help," I lightly chastised. "It's perfectly understandable to feel what you've been feeling, but you can't dwell on it, sis. This is a case where it may truly be mind over matter."
"How do we even go about this? How am I to just let go of my personal anxieties that are not unfounded?"
"Luna, with all due respect, please shut up and listen," I ordered, feeling my patience slip little by little. My sister only stared at me, dumbfounded by my sudden change in tone, allowing me to speak unimpeded. "I don't think you realize that there was a time before your banishment you had no issues with your attitude and self-esteem. Before our rule."
Luna took a set upon her haunches, silent and at full attention. She only gave a slight nod, ushering me to continue.
"Now, yes, you have had a rough go of it since then. But I am just as much at fault for what happened as you are, sister."
"Halt with that talk, Tia, I will not le-"
"Let me finish, sister. I will hear your comments and questions afterward," I interrupted. Luna backed down, once again holding her tongue and nodding in silence, even if she looked a bit frustrated as she dropped her eyes to the floor in front of her.
"As I was saying, it was both our fault. You harbored jealousy within that eventually festered long enough compel you to act. However, I had always been a shoulder upon which you could lean, and I was not there for you. I did not push you to speak to me, even if I noted your change in behavior the preceding months. I let our royal duties - which indeed, are very important - become more important than our sisterly bond. I let the stress of our work prevent me from being there for you. So yes, I understand your guilt, because I feel much guilt over what transpired as well. We need to make time for each other again, Luna. Like we are doing right now."
As I finished with my monologue, Luna's gaze returned to me, looking as if she were on the verge of tears. But not of sadness.
"Come here," I goaded, leaning back and spreading both my forehooves and wings. I barely had time to brace myself before Luna tackled me, squeezing tightly around my midriff as I returned the favor.
"We can do this, Luna. You can do this," I encouraged her, feeling my own emotions swell up. "It's just going to take some time and some effort."
"Thank you, sister," I heard her mumble, finally loosening her grip on me a bit. "I assure you, I will not disappoint."
"Nor will I, dearest sister. Moments like these are much too precious to be missed."
While I had not paid much mind in the moment, as we both parted I realized why Luna had not chosen to hug me around my neck. I blinked a few times, being sure my eyes did not deceive me before I spoke up.
"Well, I would say my hypothesis was correct, little sister," I said, unable to keep myself from a slight giggle. Indeed, while her visage remained the same, she was no longer of a size that mirrored mine. Luna quickly took note as well as she took in her surroundings from a vantage point at least a foot shorter than minutes before. She stomped a hoof as her confusion gave way to disgust.
"Of all the things to change, why must our height be the first?!" she shouted in frustration, which only coaxed my laughter further.
"Luna, it wasn't a problem to you until now," I reminded her. "Besides that, you are the younger sibling."
"Only by a few years, Tia," she quickly tossed back.
"Yes, I know. But on a positive note, your spell should be easier to cast, with less of you to shrink down."
"Excuse our lack of excitement over the positive spin thou has placed upon this development," she grumbled. With a flash, her jet black coat shifted back to periwinkle blue, while her stature finished its reversion to the smaller size the world recognized as Princess Luna. I found myself somewhat dumbstruck by the sudden change.
"Did you just do that on your own or..."
"Indeed, I assume the hours spent down here are coming to a close, no?"
As much as I did not want to admit it, Luna was right. It had been a nice change of pace to spend time with her, but this was by far the longest I had stepped away from my royal duties during the day. While it was likely closing in on sunset, there were still a few matters I would need to tend to before ending the day properly.
"I suppose we might as well head back upstairs, there is nothing down here that can help us anyways. Hopefully, you won't feel the effects of waking up earlier than normal during the overnight hours," I said.
"No need to worry about us, we will manage," she replied.
I headed back up the narrow staircase that would meet up to my personal study, with my sister tailing close behind. The stale air that had settled in my secret chambers gradually lightened as our climb grew nearer to the top, and to the door leading outward. But just as I reached it, a strong odor hit my nostrils. It was familiar, yet I found myself unable to quite place the identity.
"Luna, do you smell that?" I asked, turning my head back towards her. Even in the dimly lit space, I saw her quickly cringe and back up a few steps, glaring at me.
"Why must you ruin the mood with juvenile humor?" she barked.
"I'm not talking about that," I replied, rolling my eyes. "Come on."
As I reached the door, my magic thrust it open. The smell was even stronger now as we entered my room proper, and I recognized the smell almost at the same time I spotted the source seeping through the doorway that led to the hall.
Smoke.
"Sweet merciful me, what is going on?!" I shouted. Frantically I rushed to the door without a second thought, pulling it open as my every instinct told me to just flee.
What greeted my sight was nothing short of a circus, as multiple guards were tending to not just the carpeting set alight with flames, but numerous tapestries which adorned the walls. Others were galloping back and forth, seemingly in mindless panic. At last, a few moments of staring by me and my sister was enough to draw the attention of one stallion, who quickly stood and saluted.
"Your Highnesses, apologies for the mess," he said, devoid of emotion.
"I'll ask again, what in Equestria is going on here?"
"One of the castle's servants had a minor accident as he was lighting the candles in the hall to prepare for the night. He bumped into a candelabra and lit some drapes afire," he replied with an almost absurdly calm voice.
"That led to this scene... how?" Luna interrupted, in a state of awe.
"Well - I... I don't know, actually. I just arrived here," the guard stuttered, embarrassed by his own words.
"Do you need help with this?" I sighed. I could not help staring in amazement myself as a pair of unicorns tried to remove a tapestry from the wall with their hooves, rather than their magic.
"No your majesty, there is no need to worry," he said, before turning around and barking orders to a few guards still standing around. I reluctantly turned to my sister, who likewise glanced at me, befuddled.
"Why don't we get some fresh air for the time being?" I suggested, quickly turning away from the scene and heading down the hall. Luna joined me without hesitation, though she managed one last glance back for good measure.
"It seems some issues have not changed from years past. Adequately skilled personnel are still difficult to attain, yes?" she asked.
"Now you understand why it is so good to have you back," I said, shaking my head.