Chapter 5
“Being a student of Celestia afforded me a special place in the kingdom, I’ll admit that much. But what made it special was not the privileges I had or the access I was given to restricted areas of the castle. It was the closeness I had with my mentor. Celestia was in many ways closer to me than even my own parents. She kept me going in the darkest times of my life, when nothing seemed to be going right, and my courage and determination in the face of adversity would be nonexistent if I hadn’t seen the same courage and determination from Celestia.”
-Twilight Sparkle, On Extragalactic Voyages, p. 325
Princess Luna, Goddess of the Moon, Keeper of the Night… was not happy.
She knew Rarity didn’t mean for the spell to go like it had, but having it go that badly meant she had not practiced the magic nearly enough to try it on such a large scale. Foalish girl... being a unicorn, she should have more respect for the power she wielded. She should know that to fool with something capable of causing such harm could be detrimental. What if she hadn’t stopped pumping the spell with energy when she did? What if the magic had been so unstable that it hadn’t matched up with the time flow precisely, causing them to be spread throughout time.... an atom here, a molecule there…
She shuddered at the thought.
But she was wise enough to know that this line of thinking would do her no good. Worrying about the past was other ponies’ business. Right now, she needed to locate the bearers of the Elements of Harmony. It was unfortunate that the elements themselves had not been drawn in as well. Their power might be useful in escaping their current predicament.
“Come sister. We must locate my faithful student and her friends if we are to have any hope of escaping this world.”
Luna nodded toward her sister and trotted over to her location.
Celestia, the regal and majestic ruler of Equestria and the keeper of the day, was slightly less unhappy than her sister. Her thousand-year reign had taught her many things, among them patience and levelheadedness when things go wrong. Still, this world was utterly alien to her, and both she and Luna knew immediately that something was wrong.
Their constitutions were made up of elements from all three major species of pony: earth, pegasi, and unicorns. As such, they had a unique connection to the universe around them in ways that even ponies as magical as Twilight Sparkle were unaware of. This connection had informed them that they were thrown much, much further than merely another country.
They were in another galaxy.
This revelation was initially disconcerting for both alicorns, but they quickly overcame their shock and distress and set out searching for their little ponies.
Luna however still had a few twinges of uncertainty. “My sister, we must be careful. This world is not our own, and we have lost our connection to the earth. I cannot sense the moon, nor can I sense the presence of any ponies nearby.”
“I understand the threat this poses, sister. Yet we must bear in mind at all times that six ponies, and a baby dragon, will need our magic to get them home.”
Luna nodded in agreement. “Sister, may I suggest we take to the skies? Perhaps from there we may be able to locate a sign of Twilight and the other Elements.”
Celestia gave her approval, and then the two alicorns spread their magnificent wings, flapping gracefully and powerfully until they were aloft, their ethereal manes fluttering in some intangible wind.
As they swooped around the clouds, they were both startled to discover that this world was not as empty as it seemed. The grey metal box that nearly hit them was a shock to both sisters, and they barely had time to avoid being splattered against the front of it. As they struggled to recover, they watched it recede into the distance, the loud sound it made almost deafening them and the choking ozone that followed it giving them a wracking cough.
“What was that thing?” gasped Luna between fits of coughing.
“I’m not sure, Luna. Whatever it was, it was not natural, and I don’t believe it was made by ponies.”
“Not made by ponies? What makes you think so?”
Celestia paused, unsure. “There was a figure at the controls of that object. I’m surprised you didn’t notice.”
Luna shook her head in irritation. “I’m afraid I was a bit busy trying to avoid decorating the front of that thing with my royal hide.”
“The creature was . . . well, I’m not even sure what. It couldn’t be what I think it is, because those creatures have been extinct for thousands of years, before you or I were born. Furthermore, we’re not even on our world, so that reduces the probability to zero.”
Luna nodded. “Perhaps we should take to the ground, in order that we may avoid being impaled should that metal box return.”
Celestia agreed, then the two sisters dipped back down, taking one last look at the landscape for any sign of the Elements, and finally returning to solid earth once more.
They walked for merely an hour before Luna began to wear out. She was usually fast asleep by this time, and the physical exertion was making her very drowsy. “Please sister, let us rest beneath a tree for a while. I am usually sleeping in my bedchamber before now, and this trek is quite exhausting to me.”
Celestia’s face morphed into a mixture of empathy and compassion. “Do not fret, young sister. Here, rest for a while until your strength returns.”
With a nod of thanks, Luna knelt down beneath a tall tree on a bed of grass. Celestia knelt beside her, and allowed her sister to rest her head on her forelegs.
She watched as Luna, exhausted, quietly slept.
It had been truly an eternity since they had bonded quite like this. In the days before Celestia had been forced to banish her to the moon, they at least shared a sisterly love, but they were not truly on good terms with one another. Even after the curse of Nightmare Moon was broken, Celestia had to busy herself with not only raising the sun, but courtly matters, and of course keeping an eye on her faithful student, Twilight Sparkle. But by the time her duties were over and Luna began to assume control of the night, she was simply too tired to do anything other than greet her sister, share any interesting stories of the day, and then retire.
But here things were different. The planet beneath her had no need of ponies to care for it, and certainly no need for Celestia to raise the sun every morning, and she suspected that whatever moon this planet possessed would not need Luna’s help to cross the field of stars.
As unnerving as this had been to discover, she was grateful. It meant that she and Luna may begin reforging the link that they had been forced to break when Luna was banished.
No… not just reforge. She would harden it so that it may never be broken again.
But she must be careful. Even after a year of healing, Luna’s spirit was still bruised. She was outwardly happy and content to resume her duties. However, Celestia was perceptive. She still detected a hint of sadness for all the pain and suffering she had caused, the tip of an enormous black ice berg floating below a sea of outward tranquility.
This saddened the older alicorn.
Celestia’s empathetic spirit reached out to her sister. Don’t worry, my young sibling. Somehow, I’ll find a way to ease your pain and allow you to truly feel you are home.
She sighed quietly. If we ever return home.
Celestia was naturally hopeful, but even so, she had her doubts. Her connection to the earth was severed here, and though her magic was still available to its fullest extent, she had no idea if it would build back up on its own. Only time would tell. And if she wasn’t able to build up enough magic…
No.
Those thoughts were rubbish, useless for helping anypony out of such a predicament as this, and if Celestia were to retain any hope of returning to her world, she must keep a level head, despite the growing sensation of panic.
She knew that without their alicorn magic, the sun and moon back on Equi would remain locked in their place. The side of the planet with the sun would burn, while the side with the moon would freeze. The process would take days, but even so, she knew time was of the essence. The thought of thousands of creatures burning and thousands more freezing was so depressing that she silenced the thought and turned to a more pleasant memory.
Long ago, before ponies had come to the world, Gaea, the spirit of Equi, had used magic to keep the planet spinning rather than inertia like so many other gods had chosen to use for their worlds. The great pantheon of old questioned her wisdom in doing this, but the logic was impeccable: because she was responsible for raising the sun and the moon, or rather for rotating the earth in its orbit around the sun, her ponies would be grateful and continuously worship her. She had seen other gods retain followers for a few decades or centuries, only to lose them with the next generation. Being younger and willing to learn from the mistakes of others, she conceived this plan and made sure every generation of ponies knew and loved her. When she eventually grew old and near death – for all things, even goddesses, must wane – she sought an apprentice to replace her. The unicorns had helped for many centuries after it was discovered that her magic was getting weaker, but Gaea felt guilt from the fact that to do so, they would lose their powers for many years. Many would lose their magic altogether from exhaustion. Even with the great Starswirl the Bearded assisting them, it was still a great challenge to raise the sun and the moon every day. So Gaea sought another solution, a pony who was powerful and gifted, and who would be able to take over her duties. She searched throughout the land for somepony worthy of the honor of raising the sun and the moon.
She was overjoyed to find not one, but two spirits with the loyalty and dedication to the planet that might replace her. Celeste, a white alicorn, and Lun, her dark blue sister, were mere fillies when she found them. However, the magic spirit of the earth had touched them.
Alicorns are not born every day, and when they are it is a special day that is honored by the spirit of Equi blessing them with an unusually strong connection to itself.
On that fateful day, the two siblings were playing in the field outside their mother’s modest home when suddenly a visitor arrived, wearing a white hood. The fillies had stopped playing when they noticed that this hood was not just white, but brilliant. It shone in the day, as though it were woven from pure joy itself. The visitor momentarily turned and looked at the two sisters, a gentle, motherly smile playing on her lips. The fillies were in awe, for they had never seen anything, or anypony, so beautiful as this.
They watched as the mare knocked gently on their cottage door, which was opened by their mother. They observed the mare enter the house, and through the window into their humble abode they saw their parents talking with this lovely and captivating visitor. The husband and wife both had looks of shock on their faces as they listened to what the mare was telling them, then burst out with happiness.
Celeste and Lun had no idea what was going on, but when their parents called them into the house, they ran toward it, the joy on their parent’s faces a contagious thing.
As they were told the specifics of the mare’s visit, they were shocked. They had been chosen for the highest honor in all Equi? The shock turned to happiness, for every child on the planet was raised to appreciate what the goddess did for them every day of every year, and they all dreamed of one day flying off to live with her on another plane of existence. To have this day come so soon in their young lives was enough to warrant a celebration.
They feasted for three days. On the third day, Gaea revealed the implication of this honor. Because the fillies would now be, for all intents and purposes, immortal, they would outlive any pony they came across. Most ponies lived a handful of decades, and because of this Gaea reluctantly had been forced to give up forming attachments to her subjects, as difficult as that had been to do. Losing them was painful, and so it was easier on her spirit to simply watch them from afar.
But with another goddess to share in this pain and bear it, Celeste, who Gaea now referred to as Celestia, would be able to form emotional bonds with her subjects and rule them with a kind and compassionate ear because of it, as would Lun, who Gaea had renamed Luna. With their sisterly bond, they could comfort one another when their subjects, who they would grow to love, passed from the earth.
For the next few years, Gaea watched over the sisters, guiding them in their royal duties and providing them with the insights that she had garnered over the millennia.
Finally, it was time for Gaea to relinquish control over the sun and moon and put it in the hands of the now fully grown mares that she had taken under her wings. She entrusted the world to them, and made them swear an oath to never forsake their duties.
And they didn’t. For centuries after the great earth-spirit passed on, the two sisters kept their vows.
But within their spirits, things began to grow dark. The younger sister began to grow resentful, jealous that the ponies that they both worked hard to please were unappreciative of her work, yet reveled and celebrated the work of her sister. Celestia, however, didn’t notice how upset Luna was at her. Even when Luna brought up her feelings, Celestia was always too busy to do more than brush them aside, causing the resentment Luna felt to fester and grow. One day, her sister rebelled, refusing to lower the moon so that the day may return.
And so, Celestia had been forced to banish her.
The elder sister still found pain in that memory. She had tried reasoning, but something had been keeping her sister from seeing beyond her own selfish jealousy.
And now, with Luna resting her head peacefully on her sister’s forelegs, Celestia saw her chance to gain the sister back she had lost so long ago. Luna wasn’t truly back, even now. There were still pangs of guilt and sorrow for what she’d become and the deeds she’d done while under the spell of Nightmare Moon.
But Celestia knew that, despite the dire situation presented before them, she would use this time wisely to mend her sister’s spirit and forge a new bond that would last for generations.
“Awaken, dear sister.”
Luna stirred. She knew this wasn’t the proper time to raise the moon, and so was fully prepared to accept her brain’s insistence that this was merely a dream, flop over into a new position, and go back to sleep.
“Sister, please wake. We must continue our journey.”
Luna once again moved, then dreamily opened her eyes. “Do you know what time it is?”
Celestia smiled; clearly her sister had forgotten where they were. “My dear sister, you must awaken, for if we don’t finish our quest we may never get home.
The younger of the two groaned slightly, irritated at having only caught maybe an hour or two of sleep, but grateful that Celestia had remained there at her side, probably fighting the urge to straighten her legs to prevent cramps in order that her sister might sleep peaceably. Luna stretched a bit, then arose to her full height. Celestia joined her, wincing a bit at the pain in her forelegs.
“Let us be off, younger sister.”
Luna smiled up at Celestia, and the two began to walk.
“Luna . . . do you remember when we were fillies, playing in the field, and a stranger walked up to our house?”
Celestia and Luna walked and talked for several hours. Luna was surprised at how open her sister was. Celestia was normally content to share a bit of castle gossip, or the latest adventure Twilight and her friends had been on, but this was different. They were talking not as monarchs, but as sisters.
Luna had forgotten what this felt like, and it warmed her soul.
Celestia was normally quite friendly, but they never really opened their hearts to each other like this. There simply wasn’t enough time between Celestia relinquishing control of the day and Luna taking command of the night to hold a meaningful conversation.
But with this quest, there would be time to do some real healing.
Luna admitted to herself that she had never really gotten over the damage she’d caused as Nightmare Moon, both to the citizens of Equestria and to her sister’s spirit. Despite the spell having been broken, Luna still felt ashamed and distraught at having crushed her sister’s heart.
She still recalled Celestia’s attempts to plead with her, to get her to understand the harm she was causing not just to ponykind, but to Celestia herself. Yet she had been too consumed by jealousy and hatred to listen. And it had cost her.
Not just in terms of her freedom, but respect from ponies and her sister, as well as herself.
She’d had a lot of time to contemplate what had happened, yet because of that horrible curse she had never seen past her own selfish desires. Luna realized all too well that she had been under some evil influence, yet that did little to assuage the guilt and shame she felt, as well as the sadness at the thought of crushing her sibling, who only wanted to see harmony restored and her sister happy.
So the conversation she was having at present was both an incredible relief, and a source of great joy for the younger princess.
After the conversation had ended, Luna had kept silent, processing all that had been said. Finally she spoke.
“Sister . . .”
Celestia turned her head.
“I’m quite happy that you chose to initiate this conversation. I had been quite depressed regarding my inexcusable behavior, and I must admit when I emerged from the spell and into your open forelegs, I was prepared for another thousand years in my prison. To have you accept me back was... something I wasn’t prepared for at the time. But this talk we had made it so much clearer.”
Celestia smiled. “I’m glad you think so, sister. Truth be told, the matter had weighed quite heavily on my own heart. I’m just happy you and I finally had a chance to rebuild our bonds and, frankly, to get to know one another after such a long absence.”
Luna returned her smile.
They walked some more, enjoying the sounds of the birds singing in the trees and the scent of moss and undergrowth.
“Sister... something has been bothering me.”
Celestia was intrigued by this new direction in their conversation. “Have I been unclear in some way, my sibling?”
“Oh no, nothing like that. What bothers me is that with our connection to the earth severed, we shouldn’t be able to sense anything. Yet I do sense something around us, a great power that we might be able to tap.”
The older sister had sensed this as well, but passed it off as merely an aftereffect of the teleportation. The fact that Luna sensed it too meant that there was something more, something lingering that could not be explained by the teleportation itself.
“Do you suppose it could be connected to our magic in some way?”
“I would hope so, Luna. If it can be harnessed somehow, then we might not be trapped here.”
Luna let the conversation go at that.
Soon the day ran out, and night fell for the two princesses. Stripped of their duties, they savored the chance to sleep and then wake together, a rare opportunity that would never have happened had their duties not been so abruptly taken away from them.
Luna knew she’d have a bit of trouble getting to sleep. Centuries of sleeping in the day and being awake at night would be a hard habit hard to break. Yet, perhaps her long walk and conversation would allow her to get the rest her body craved.
She was asleep within ten seconds of lying down.
Celestia was concerned, however. This forest was alien, and as such she had no idea what kind of dangers awaited them. They had their magic of course, but if they should be taken advantage of while they slept, they might be truly defenseless.
Normally one of the two princesses was awake, and so was able to safely guard an entire world with her magic. But now they were exposing their bellies, as it were, inviting any horrible creatures desiring their flesh to dine upon them.
But her top priority was to find her little ponies so they could return home and prevent the destruction that a stilled sun and moon would cause, and she could not do that bereft of energy.
So reluctantly, Celestia knelt down next to her sister, closed her eyes, and entered a dreamless sleep.
As soon as she regained consciousness Celestia knew something was wrong. There were hooves all around them.
No, not hooves. All the lower extremities that she saw through her half-open eyes occurred in pairs, so they must be feet instead.
But the feet of what?
She didn’t have time to formulate an answer to herself, for she felt the press of cold metal against the back of her head and heard a filtered voice barking at her.
“On your feet, animal. The commander would be most interested in having such fine horses in his collection.”