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// Millennium's Eve 
// Story: Of Moon and Sun 
// by Curious Mew 
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Celestia had been called many names over her long aeons of life. She was the Sunbringer, Dawnsdaughter and Skyburner. She was Earthshaker and Darksbane, Keeper of the Eternal Flame and Savior of Ponykind. She was Everlasting Light, Defender of Hearth and Home, and Sovereign of Day. Once, she had been hailed as the Scion of Order. In these more prosaic and peaceful times, she was simply Princess or Teacher. Yet, as the alicorn drifted through the void toward her Sun on the eve of the thousandth year of Luna’s banishment, there was only one name she ever wished to be called, a name she did not know if she would ever be known as again.

Sister.

Her eyes took in the stars as she approached her destination, their nature both obscure and known. She knew very well what they were on one level; they were akin to her Sun, a body she knew as surely as her own, for it was indeed her own. Yet out there, as she gazed into the endless black, they seemed cold and mysterious, distant and unknowable pinpricks of light. The darkness and coldness and stillness of the void changed them, just as familiar shapes seem strange, even frightening, in the dark of night.

Which meant that, no matter how long she listened to their song, it did not bring her the comfort she knew it had brought her sister. For hers was the realm of the solid and the real, that which is left when the harsh light of day casts aside all shadow and artifice. Hers was the waking world; her sister thrived on the mysteries and liminal nature of the dark. Out here, gazing into the realm loved by her sister, Celestia wondered just how well she had ever known her. Certainly she had known they had their disagreements, what siblings didn’t? But she never could have imagined a fight like the one they had. Had that, too, been foretold by the stars, a sign she at least had missed? Back then, she had rarely looked to the stars for whispers of possible futures, preferring to leave that to Luna.

Yet Celestia could understand their song well enough; she knew that this night would bring Equestria either salvation or damnation, and that it would be found in that unlikeliest of places: Ponyville, a small town she had intervened to help found based on their distant promise.

With a final, graceful dive through the aether, Celestia alighted on the surface of the Sun. It was hot beyond all mortal reckoning; even Luna would have been scorched by its heat. But this was her domain, the one place she could fully remove her mask and be as herself. It barely even felt warm to her in a physical sense. Rather, she felt safe and comforted, as if resting in the embrace of a loved one, as she sank deeper into the Sun.

She cast one last look at the Moon, and she felt the baleful gaze upon her as she finally brought her head down into her sanctum. She felt those distant eyes upon her, and knew that the prisoner, too, knew her sentence was at its end. Yet as Celestia sank deeper, down to the center of the Sun, that furnace of creation, she almost managed to feel removed from the worries of the past and present. Almost. But they were precisely why Celestia was here, the past and what would unfold over the next few precious hours meant everything.

“Oh Luna, wilt thy return bring with thee sorrows and death, or wilt thou again be my beloved sister, the only one with whom I can be myself? Dost thou bring with thee an end to this Golden Age on thy raven wings, or wilt thou bring the most glorious and beautiful age when thy Lunar imprisonment is done?”

The old vernacular felt right to her in that moment, even though it had long ago fallen out of favor, had been replaced by simpler rules. But this night would bring back much that had been lost, she reflected. The Elements of Harmony had never responded to her since that night when she forcibly channeled their power to banish her sister. They had been dead to her, worthless. So she had left them behind when she moved the capital to Canterlot, away from the ghosts of the past. They rested there still, in the Old Castle, a ruin where the fate of Equus would rest on the shoulders of her faithful student.

As much as Celestia loved Twilight Sparkle, she could not help a shudder from coursing down her spine. She was still a young mare, but she had the kind of power that appeared in only one or two ponies every millennium, if that. She was the perfect mix of talent and determination, a mortal who one day might be truly fit to challenge the gods themselves. In many ways, the alicorn reflected, Twilight and Luna were alike in their thirst for knowledge, their intricate spellcraft, and their quick minds.

And, if Celestia was being honest with herself, that thought scared her more than a little. Ponies of lesser ability than her sister and student had been dangerous enough when the lust for power entered their hearts; they had plunged Equestria into war and darkness, sacrificed the lives of so many to their own petty ambitions. One of the few who could be said to be Twilight’s rival had made a kingdom disappear alongside him, a promise that his conquest would not be denied, even if he needed to wait an eternity to achieve it. A scant few mortals had the vision and willpower to think and act on such scales. And if Twilight could not yet be said to fully belong to their ranks, Celestia knew, she would be before long. The storm of magic she had unleashed when she was still but a filly taking her entrance exam had  promised as much. And another such pony who had in the end decided to seek power for its own sake, one who had once been her faithful student, had…

The thought was too painful to continue.

And Luna stood above them, in her might and Celestia’s mind. How she longed to believe that Nightmare Moon had not been her sister, that it had been nothing more than mere possession! Yet she could not afford to fall into mere hope. Without definitive proof that it was not so, she must see the two as identical. For had Luna not shown her face as her own in the moments before that final, fateful confrontation?

A shudder coursed through Celestia’s body, and she felt an old, cold ache in her chest. No physical trace remained of the injury she had suffered, none of her little ponies who had lived for a long, long time had ever seen any evidence that their god could be injured, let alone killed. She suspected, however, that the scar in her Essence would never quite heal, that the attempted act of sororicide had left an eternal mark upon her being, a grim reminder of how close she had been to falling and letting the world fall into the dark.

And that was the problem. Luna was an alicorn, a god made flesh, no matter how much she may have been weakened by her imprisonment. And Twilight, her precious Twilight Sparkle, a pony she loved as a daughter, was, despite all her power, mortal. It was a ridiculous gamble, that Twilight Sparkle, a mare who scarcely knew other ponies existed, would find not just five friends but five friends capable of wielding the Elements in a single day. It was the kind of gamble Luna would make, had made, like when she staked her own soul to save that of Spectral Glow the Inquisitive or when she risked everything to bring the Third Pony-Dragon War to a close. It was a plan worthy of the Patron of Travelers and Tricksters, not the kind of slow, cautious (perhaps overly so) deliberation to which Celestia was accustomed.

But there was no turning back now. Twilight had been in Ponyville for several hours; things had been set into motion that could no longer be stopped or undone. Celestia’s horn glowed, not that a difference could be seen deep in the heart of the Sun, as she shifted the Sun and Moon into their proper places.

“Luna, when it is time for the dawn, wilt thou allow me to again raise the Sun, or wilt thou fight with all of thy power to keep Equestria in darkness?”

In just a few more short hours, it would be time for the Sun to again rise, for the nights here in the heart of Summer were oh so fleeting, just as the Sun hid away for most of Winter. In just a few short hours, all of Celestia’s fondest hopes or deepest fears would be realized. She felt helpless as she turned the situation over and over again in her mind, but there was nothing she could do. All she could do was trust in Twilight Sparkle.

And trust in Luna.