Everything hurt, even parts of her that she'd never consciously felt. The muscles which could move her ears, the skin of her legs, all burned horribly.
Vivid tried to blink away the red haze across her eyes, as she rolled onto her stomach. Something touched her side, helping her up and to a standing position. The guards were surrounding her, but staying away from the element of Bravery which laid in front of her on the stone floor.
Everything was eerily silent, but when she looked at the guards their mouths were moving. She shook her head and tapped her ears, wincing at the pain as the silence resolved into a high ringing.
Ever took her shoulders and moved her so she was staring eye to eye, then mouthed "What happened" in the most exaggerated way she could.
It was odd not to hear herself speak, but she did her best to explain.
"The spell worked, I think, but I can't tell. Ask the Element if it is conscious."
Wide eyed and confused, Ever turned to the gemstone on the floor, but before she could open her mouth, and image resolved from it, hovering in midair. Vivid, in red hues and transparent. The image opened her mouth, seemed to realize that Vivid couldn't hear her, then looked to Ever, speaking, before vanishing.
As though they'd seen a ghost, Ever and the other guards herded Vivid quickly outside and back to the courtyard, where they forced Vivid to lay down while the two unicorn guards discussed something nearby. Vivid could only hear the softest humming when they spoke, and she began to pray silently to Celestia that her hearing would return.
When a paper was presented to Vivid, she read it with half lidded eyes.
"The gemstone said that it worked, and we should leave. Can you return us to Canterlot?"
Vivid nodded numbly and moved to the spot they'd arrived, waiting until the guards surrounded her before lighting her horn and taking them back to the castle, before blacking out.
-----------
When Vivid woke up there was a cold pressure against the sides of her head, uncomfortable and disconcerting, but she could just barely make out a conversation nearby.
"--Recovery."
"And the interviews?" Luna asked, voice tight.
"The guards have been sequestered for you, until you are ready. Two of them are unicorns trained for combat."
Luna sighed and moved across the room, the sharp taps against tile easy to discern.
"I'll figure out what happened."
"Or you could just ask me," Vivid said, voice a thin rasp.
There was a rush of activity, and the cold things on her head being pulled away so she could actually hear. She could tell just by the ache in her head that it would hurt to use magic, so she left it alone and enjoyed Luna's hooves taking hold of her own.
"Vivid, you returned in quite a terrible state," Luna said in the tone of a doctor delivering bad news.
"Mmm. But I was successful. When will I be sent off to war?" Vivid said as she tried to sit up but was effortlessly pushed back down onto her back.
"When you're recovered, we will both go," Luna sighed. "But don't let that take away these moments of love as we still have them. Don't deprive me of this because of a grim tomorrow..."
Vivid grimaced, feeling like she was being scolded, before she felt Luna lay her head on top of her, resting on her side.
"Could tomorrow be a night for us to be together?" Luna asked gently. "I miss you, Vivid... I miss you terribly."
"You have all of a nation to keep you company, my love," Vivid muttered, a bit of her bitterness coming through in her tone, and glad she couldn't see Luna's expression. "Why would time with me matter?"
Luna sighed, and then shifted to put a hoof to Vivid's cheek. "You are important to me, Vivid. You are my love for a reason, because I chose to open my heart to you, and you opened yours to me. Why now... Why now are we so stiff, so separate?"
Vivid slowly moved one hoof over Luna's holding it to her cheek as tears started slipping from her eyes, the aching in her body now mostly faded besides her head.
"I... Feel like an ending to all the good in the world is looming over me, more and more of late, as though there's nothing left for me to do, as though I am doomed. I am... frozen in my heart, bracing for this horror approaching. I do not know how... how to not crumble under it."
Luna held her tighter, and kissed her on the cheek.
"If an end shall come, I will be there, Vivid," she said with a bit of hope, and a bit of fear. "I... Perhaps am in denial, of this ending approaching. Wishing ever for more time, for less strife. But I will brace it with you. But please, please let your heart open to me for a few more nights."
Vivid felt some hurt in her get much worse, as she nodded, sniffled, and embraced Luna. As she opened up to the pain she was feeling.
They cried together, and that night they shared a bed. By the next sunset Vivid could cast her seeing spell, and could spend the whole night with Luna, the rest of the schedule having been cleared.
She did her best not to think of the cloned copy of her essence, in that gemstone back in the crypt below Everfree castle. But every once in awhile she would have a strange sensation of being separated from her body, just long enough to stumble or twitch before it passed. Luckily Luna did not seem to notice it, as it happened so rarely. But Vivid worried over it.
"The guards told me that you were successful."
Vivid looked up from her midnight meal, the topic change jarring her. They'd been talking about the gardens, she thought.
Vivid just hummed and nodded, before going back to her food. Luna watched her.
"Vivid, where did your fire go?" Luna asked in as gentle a tone as she could. "You used to be so determined, with vigor. Now I worry you just have anger to fuel you, and the rest of the time you drift about doing your duties."
"My work fuels me," Vivid answered quickly, though she knew Luna was right in part.
Vivid had spent so much time and effort, all on becoming less remarkable, less noticeable. She'd become noticed by standing out and found it disconcerting. So she'd done her best to become a fog which could not be criticized or questioned.
"Then your work must be lacking in some way, for you to seem so drained of late."
Vivid sighed and put her fork down. "There is a war, in case you haven't noticed, and it is somewhat draining to view it as we are. You as well have lost some of your emotional color, Luna. It is an artifact of the times, not of some failure of mine."
"I'm not blaming you..."
"I know but it feels like you are," Vivid groaned. "It feels as though... as though you've given to me the keys to the kingdom and asked why it is not running well, and I am... just as concerned, just as lost, and know not what to do. If I could bring back my fire, I would."
They were quiet for a bit, before Luna moved her cushion to sit next to Vivid, and wrapped a wing around her.
"I believe you," Luna said. "I do. I was thinking, you haven't been to your church since the time you went to Bitain..."
"Celestia's church," Vivid chuckled. "Not mine. And... It would be disingenuous, I think, to worship there."
"Not worship, no, but perhaps we could just visit it? The church of the moon has established itself next door, we could visit both. There's beauty there at least for us to admire."
"That... alright," Vivid said as she leaned into Luna's embrace and smiled a little. "Alright, Luna. I can see if they've kept cleaning the place as I instructed."
"Oh I'm certain they have," Luna said eagerly. "They attend nearly every court session, sitting near the back with my own worshipers, and they always seem so proper."
Vivid sat up, shocked. "You... do not call them cultists?"
She could feel Luna tense a little, and heard her sigh.
"I... when you were so hurt by your crisis of faith I realized I had been perhaps cruel. The faith these ponies have in me is so similar to the faith in my sister, and truly I cannot justify crushing or disparaging one, without the other."
Vivid hummed and reached over, blindly searching until she found Luna's cheek and pulled her head down to kiss her.
"I appreciate your thoughts of kindness. Perhaps that is a type of bravery, to allow the strange within its boundaries, and to give it space to improve."
Luna huffed. "They had better improve. I cannot hear their prayers, and neither may my sister. Eventually, they will have to face their own desires as they are, and not as signs and desires from some old and tired alicorns."
"You are not so old in spirit," Vivid said as she nuzzled Luna's neck and sighed.
"No? Perhaps I am skilled in hiding it then," Luna chuckled. "Or I was extraordinarily immature at the start, and it took me this long to mature."
"If so that would be quite a sight," Vivid said, her grin growing. "A young Luna, with no maturity to speak of, commanding an army."
"Oh hush, I had enough maturity to understand war. It's brutally simple," Luna said as she stood and helped Vivid stand as well. "Back then, we had no allies, so I was quite free to do as I wished. A favorite tactic from that time was to have a flight of pegusi carrying four spears a piece fly overhead and drop them, and then I would relocate behind the enemy and start executing their leadership."
"What does allies have to do with it, that sounds like fine strategy," Vivid said, wincing as one cramped leg stiffened, until she worked it loose.
"Well we are fighting flying creatures this time around, for one," Luna sighed, Vivid increasing her magic vision a little so she could pick up facial expressions, and taking in Luna's frustrated frown, her brow creased and the corners of her mouth turned down.
She continued. "But my tactic of executing leadership was one which the Buffalo and Deer both agreed was unacceptable to a civilized battlefield, and in the terms of their incorporation to Equestria they required that I cease to do so. It showed a brutality and unjust circumvention of the normal ponies which had waged the war in the first place. If they'd been able, they would have demanded that I never enter a battle myself, due to my nature as an alicorn."
"Let not the gods interfere in the matters of mortals," Vivid sighed. "That is in the legends of alicorns, isn't it?"
"It is, and one which hounded My sister and I from the very first moment we dared speak our mind or touch the sun and moon," Luna nodded in agreement, letting Vivid lean on her as they walked back to the castle and through it to the front gardens, where a carriage waited.
Luna helped Vivid into the carriage so she wouldn't have to walk all the way to the churches, and they started rolling, Vivid letting her magical vision fade away as she relaxed in the rocking motion.
"I've missed you the last year or so..." Luna whispered.
"I've been right here," Vivid mumbled.
"In the flesh, but... We have been so occupied, so torn apart by the things going on. I've missed this. Going somewhere not as princess and advisor but... as a couple."
Vivid could feel her cheeks warming at the thought, but it helped that she couldn't see how many ponies were on the streets, she could just imagine it was the two of them.
"So maybe it's a good thing I was injured. Gives us an excuse."
"But why do we need an excuse, Vivid?" Luna pleaded. "All this time, if we... If I had just made the time..."
Vivid turned a little so she could embrace Luna. "A lesson learned... For both of us."
They stopped, and once Vivid had been helped down to the street she renewed her vision and took in the twin buildings.
To the left was a gleaming brass and glass three story edifice that Vivid knew well. She'd helped design it after the churches from Bitain, the one she'd grown up in, and descriptions she'd been given of the head church in the capital of Bitain.
It was comforting. Just to look at it, to contemplate the warmth and familiarity. She could remember days of sunlight on her back as she cleaned wood floors, long before she'd become nocturnal.
Then to the right, she found a monument to Luna, to the night. The moon carved from wood and plated in silver, adornments of bats and wolves, with magical lights winking like stars from within, too many to count and smaller than the typical lights which would be blinding in such quantity.
At the door, there sat a stallion in a simple robe, with a table on which he had bread and water.
Occasionally when a pony would pass by, they would be offered. No preaching, no entry required. Vivid knew well that the church of the sun had food and wine within, but it was kept within. A method of drawing in ponies that she'd been taught and passed on to this new church. Now, she wondered if that had been in error.
"They're both beautiful," Luna said simply.
She didn't see it. None of that struggle or contrast, Vivid realized. Luna saw representations of her sister and herself, standing side by side. In harmony.
Vivid silently chastised herself for her complicating angle, and took a step towards the black church. Luna followed, but the church member only nodded to her and smiled. If Celestia herself had descended on her church when Vivid was a child, she could only imagine the frantic and jubilant celebration that would have immediately ensued.
As they walked through the doors, Vivid notes that there was no profile of Luna upon them. Just the moon. Perhaps they did not worship Luna directly then, as the mare.
Inside the church, a vaulted ceiling held so many tiny lights that it truly took on the appearance of the night sky at the winter equinox. The constellations were all in place and lovingly recreated, and then the moon, enchanted to glow, hung in the middle of it all and gave enough light for the church to be well lit.
"I can see the stars," Vivid whispered, face turned up so she could take it all in.
"Can... Normally, you cannot?" Luna asked, suddenly hesitant as she come across an unexpected difference in the way they viewed the world.
"They are too far away. I saw traces of them when you raise the moon, and I see drawings. But this..."
Vivid took in a deep breath, sat down, and sighed. She smiled, tears gathering at the edges of her eyes, and Luna sat with her as she took it all in.
The little gemstone lights flickered ever so slightly, and the dim light was barely enough to be seen around the glowing sculpture of the full moon, but they sat there for what seemed like ages until Vivid's magic faded out, and she leaned her head against Luna's shoulder, smiling.
"Princess of the night. I see it now. Not just the moon..."
It was Luna's turn to feel a hot blush rush to her cheeks as she chuckled softly and hugged Vivid. "The night is just part of nature. I guide it, but you say my title with such reverence, I feel I haven't earned it."
Vivid reached up with a hoof, tracing Luna's neck and head before gently tapping her on the nose. "Stop it. You're plenty important, and just... My final understanding of that importance isn't a bad thing. It's... It's wonderful to finally understand what people are talking about when they speak of your stars..."
Luna wriggled her nose before sighing, and finally nodding. "Alright, that... Yes. It is important, I agree. I'm... glad you finally could see them like this."
Vivid laughed softly before gesturing around at the building. "No pews?"
"I told them if they started preaching my words from a pulpit, I'd rip the thing off the floor and pitch it through a window."
"Awww," Vivid crooned, nuzzling Luna. "I missed that."
"What, me being petulant?" Luna huffed, hugging her.
"No, no," Vivid sighed. "You being.... You don't want to be out of reach, you know? You don't wanna be a god."
Luna grimaced, looking up at the image of her moon. "Who would want to be? Nopony willing to talk to you, I already have most ponies afraid to meet my gaze, just being a ruler. Being a god? That sounds horrible."
"I'd order everypony to wear clothes," Vivid declared.
"What?!" Luna snorted. "Wait, if you were a god?"
Vivid nodded firmly. "Absolutely. I wear a cloak, and wish everypony else would too. Don't like having to see everypony's teats and--"
"Surely this must be something you were taught in your church to Celestia," Luna said incredulously.
"No! I simply have a bit of propriety," Vivid objected, cheeks hot.
Luna chuckled a little "You don't have to see anything, this... Wait, this is because of your magical sight, isn't it?" she realized. "You grew up not having to see other ponies, and now you're able to see their bodies in great detail! Your embarrassed!"
"I am not!" Vivid said sharply, but her cheeks were burning. "It's just... exposed! Improper!"
"Very well, then maybe I will have to wear some clothes for you," Luna said, her tone more sympathetic. "Give you some comfort."
Vivid just huffed and softly jabbed Luna in the neck with her horn, getting a laugh out of the alicorn, before she stood and waited for Vivid to follow her.
"They've made a new addition recently," Luna said as they navigated the halls into a back room and Vivid relit her horn to see where she was being taken.
They came to a doorway that cut through the wall. Beyond was a familiar office.
"The two churches are joined?" Vivid asked curiously as she peered through.
"To encourage cooperation and unity," Luna said reverently. "Between those who follow myself, and those who follow my sister."
Vivid nodded. "I hope that they become fast friends."
"Friends... That's a nice thought," Luna said before embracing Vivid and turning to go back to the castle, seized by thoughts of friendship and a hope in the future, cautious and trembling though those thoughts were.