//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2: Blessings of the Crown 
// Story: Sun & Moon Act II: A Crown Divided 
// by cursedchords 
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“Ponies today forget that my sister and I were born into a world of darkness. But I can never forget it.”


	- Journals of High Princess Celestia (Vol. 3)


When the Sun dawned on Canterlot, Celestia was up to greet it. She was standing on the eastern balcony of her tower, right across from her office, enjoying the brief moments of solitude at the start of her day. 

Sitting in the far east of the country as it did, Canterlot was the first city in Equestria to glimpse the morning light, rising clear and yellow over the boundless deserts that stretched away from the city to the east. Celestia prided herself on being one of the first to watch it crest that far horizon. Another day was set to begin.

Already it was growing warm, and that meant that the day promised to be another scorcher. Canterlot’s weather team would do its best to ensure that at least a pleasantly cool breeze would blow through the upper reaches of the city for most of the afternoon, but rain would of course be preferable. 

With little hope Celestia took off and flew around the tower to look at the western horizon, but it was clear as crystal. Reports had already indicated that the sky would be clear for days at least, earning only a sad sigh from Celestia. 

Out there on the western horizon were thousands of her citizens, her responsibility, and they all were looking to her and the rest of the government for hope. Equestria would survive, of that she was certain. The nation had outlasted centuries of Discord’s darkness, so surely it could weather a drought like this. But that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t do everything possible to alleviate the troubles.

Celestia set her thoughts on the rest of the day as she took a casual flight through the palace’s spires. The bright stone and gleaming tiles of the palace shone like jewels in that early morning light, each one of them a contrast against the building that Celestia knew used to occupy this spot. 

Once upon a time Discord’s castle had sat atop this mountain as a twisted reminder of his dominance. In rebuilding Canterlot, she had vowed to make a work of architectural mastery that would outdo that old memory twofold.

Still, though, as she flew Celestia had to think about business. The vote on the Food Act would be taking place during the Senate’s sitting this afternoon. That was still more than seven hours away, but the vote was only the first part of her concerns. Three centuries of experience had been enough to teach her that things were never easy where the Senate was concerned, and as sure as the Sun had just risen, it would take all of her morning to address individual concerns and twist enough hooves to get the measure passed.

Alighting back on her balcony, Celestia spied one of those concerns already waiting by the door to her study. It was Ink, smartly dressed in the purple sash of her office. 

The yellow earth pony was still a relative newcomer in the chamber, having been elected only this spring. But she had already shown herself to be a natural consensus-builder, and now sat at the head of a dependable bloc of mostly rural votes. To get the Food Act passed, those votes were going to be crucial.

“Good morning, your Highness,” Ink said cheerily.

“Always a pleasure, Ink,” Celestia replied, shaking out her mane in the vain hope of smoothing the tangles that had developed over the night. She had let it grow long, so much so that she required a clip over her neck to keep it in place. 

Truly it was a mild concern since Luna was the one who had to worry about appearances, spending so much time in the public eye as she did. As long as Celestia could maintain a professional air, that would be enough.

The ice effectively broken, she opened up the door to the study and motioned for Ink to follow. Her breakfast was waiting on the desk, a pitcher of ice water and a small bowl of diced apples. She glanced at Ink, but the senator shook her head and pulled her own apple out of the burgeoning satchel she had draped across her back.

“Your sleep was well, I take it?” Ink’s voice was clear and precise, stuck in the middle between a shapely urban accent and rough farmer’s drawl. The Canterlot Foothills were something of a strange province like that, agricultural for the most part, but dominated by historic cider orchards that mostly served the city.

“As well as could be expected,” Celestia answered politely, pouring herself a glass of water. Today really was going to be hot. “How has your district been faring lately?”

Ink sighed, her previous cheer quickly drying up. “Things haven’t improved, if that’s what you’re asking. The cider crop this year looks to be mostly a loss, and it’s hitting the orchards hard. We’ve seen a lot of owners selling out to move into the city.” She withdrew a small bottle from her satchel and took a sip. Celestia caught the scent: tea, with plenty of ice and sugar. “None of them will be happy about this new bill either, necessary though it is.”

“So I have your support?” Celestia asked, keeping a mental tally of where the measure stood. Pensive and his cabal would get the bill most of the way to the finish line, but getting Ink and her faction on board would seal the passage for sure.

“It’s not my vote that you have to worry about, Princess,” Ink answered. “The writing is on the wall for this measure, and I think that anypony can see that. But there’s surely darkness in the details, and getting those ironed out will probably be important for most of the rural votes. There’s been a whole lot of pride-swallowing already, and some of them are itching for a fight with Pensive’s group.”

Celestia took a bite of one of her apple slices as she thought. Indeed she probably should have expected something like this. Pensive and the urban senators who followed him had been leading the charge in regulating the agricultural sector in order to fend off the worst of the food shortages. But earth ponies could be stubborn as mules when it came to their farms, and surely wouldn’t have appreciated seeing their senators bow to pressure from the urban elites again and again as the year had gone on. “What do we have to offer them, then?”

“Price will be the major point for movement,” Ink said. “So long as we can keep that reasonably generous, I can present it as a good deal to the farming districts. If you can get me a reasonable price, then I can surely get you the votes you need.”

“Well, you know who is going to be the obstacle in that discussion.” Ink nodded knowingly at the comment. Pensive knew that his group held the balance of power in the Senate, and so convincing him to give any ground was always a struggle. “It will probably take most of the morning for us to hammer out something workable. Are you free for lunch today?”

Ink took another drink from her bottle before capping it and returning it to her satchel. “That should do nicely, your Highness,” she said, gathering her things as she rose out of the chair. She extended one hoof for their usual shake, but this time she held it for just a moment instead of letting go. “Princess?” she said, “Let’s hope this is the last time we need to have this conversation for a very long while.”

“Let us hope that,” Celestia returned sincerely, sitting back down as Ink left the study, the sound of her steps echoing loudly off of the walls as she stepped down the tower’s stairs. 

Ink really had been a lucky find in this legislative session. Celestia had in her time been forced to deal with Senates without allies, and often it had been like pulling teeth trying to get her projects through the system. With Ink, at least she had access to a reasonably-sized bloc of steady votes. The problem was that trying to keep Ink and Pensive’s groups equally satisfied was a very delicate balancing act.

In a way, having to negotiate with Pensive today was something of a blessing. Spread out on her desk was what remained of the senator’s draft of the Food Act, now covered with red marks where the Princess had identified sections that didn’t work within the current legal system. The two of them were scheduled to meet to iron out those differences anyway. There was probably a half hour or so left until then.

Celestia picked up the bowl of apple slices with her magic and walked across the hall and out onto her balcony once more. 

While the window of her study looked west over Canterlot and the rest of Equestria, this view showed nothing but the golden dunes of the eastern desert, stretching on forever into the far horizon. Celestia took a deep breath as she strode up to the railing. She wasn’t entirely certain what it was about this view that calmed her nerves. Perhaps it was the clean emptiness of that horizon, reminding her of simpler times, or perhaps it was simply something about the golden light of that dawn. Despite looking at that sunrise for three hundred years now, every morning Celestia still felt like it was her first time. She still remembered what that had felt like, centuries ago now, when she and Luna had together destroyed the Chaos Magic that Discord had used to control day and night. Back then, it had been the first dawn that any pony alive had ever seen, and now Celestia and Luna were the only ones left alive who understood just what a blessing each new dawn was.





Eridian
Three Hundred Twelve Years Earlier

Celestia grunted as she hauled another barrel of cider off of the stack in the cellar. Normally, using her magic to lift things required hardly any effort, but these huge wooden barrels were another matter. It required all of Celestia’s concentration to set it gently onto the ground so that she could start rolling it up the ramp out of the cellar.

Outside, a dark twilight greeted her, the soft, blue ambience that held permanent sway over Discord’s capital of Eridian. A chilly breeze swept across her shoulders as she emerged aboveground, and Celestia glanced west to see a menacing swirl of grey clouds gathering over the horizon. Purple lightning flickered in that direction. That was going to be a wicked storm come evening.

Out on the broken cobbles of the street, four stallions were busy loading another barrel onto a wagon that was already nearly full of them.

“Easy up!” bellowed the one standing in the wagon’s bed, and the three earth ponies below cooperated to lift up another one. “That’s it, boys! Now you all three help Tia over there! We’ve got to be on the move soon or else we’re going to get soaked on our way out!”

Celestia smiled gratefully as the others came over to help. Wickerlock, the tallest of the three, gave her a knowing smirk as he came around to her side. “Not that you need any help, I’m sure,” he said in a low voice that only she could hear.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to take all of the pay,” she replied, which Wickerlock merely shook off. Though she put up a stubborn front, Celestia could feel the exhaustion sapping her limbs. It had been a very demanding day.

With another grunt, Wickerlock and Capstan – an older, grizzled grey earth pony with a three-inch beard hanging off of his chin – hoisted the last barrel up onto the wagon. The stout pony up on top who received it was Raspberry, the owner of the establishment. His son Elderberry, already a head taller than his father, was the final member of the group. After checking that everything was properly settled once more, Raspberry let himself down off of the wagon with a huff. 

“Well, my friends, it looks like this is the end for us.” He looked grim, and Elderberry beside him was not much better.

“If that’s the way that it’s got to be, then that’s that,” Capstan said, stepping forward to catch Raspberry’s hoof in an enveloping hoofshake. “Course you understand we’d appreciate it if you could stay on longer, but there’s no way we can make you stay.”

Raspberry returned the shake with force. “You three have been good workers, and surely I appreciate that. But there simply isn’t anything left for me in this city anymore. I’ll need help once I get out into the country too, you know.” He offered Capstan a grin.

For an instant, Celestia allowed herself to think about it, as she often did when she had a moment to spare. Out from underneath the darkness of the city, far away from here, she could find another life, perhaps. The few ponies who managed to straggle their way into Eridian always said that things were better out there, though not by much. Maybe away from Eridian, she could know what a normal life was supposed to feel like.

But she couldn’t go. Unlike Raspberry, she had deeper roots here in the city. Back home, Luna had just celebrated her sixth birthday a week ago. She wouldn’t dare risk a journey out through the wilds with her younger sister in tow. She wasn’t even really comfortable in letting Luna out of the house, as much as she knew that the young alicorn needed her exercise every now and then. So Celestia shook her head slightly, and Capstan took the hint.

“The offer is much appreciated, friend,” he said, giving up Raspberry’s hoof. “But we have our own reasons to stay. May your family stay happy and live long!” Wickerlock and Celestia each offered their own nods of agreement as Raspberry gave them their own looks. Behind him, Elderberry had already finished hitching himself up to the wagon. To the west, an arcing bolt of lightning lit up the sky, the flash making Raspberry start. 

“Well, like I say, time is short. May we meet again in fairer times!” He trotted back to the front of the wagon, where Elderberry quickly helped him into his own harness. Within minutes, the two of them were trudging away down the gently sloping street, heading down the mountainside and into whatever life awaited them. That left just Celestia, Wickerlock, and Capstan standing on the curb.

Wickerlock turned away from the sight first. “He’s not wrong, you know. We’re going to have to hoof it back home if we don’t want to get caught in this downpour ourselves.” 

He didn’t wait for any agreement, instead walking off into a nearby alley, the curls of his long brown mane bouncing over his shoulders with each step. Capstan gestured for her to go first, and Celestia wasted no time entering the darkness of the alley. After a single look around, Capstan followed.

“So what now?” she asked. “We have enough stores to last a few days, especially with the parting bonus that Raspberry gave us, but after that we're going to need another employer.” They had been organizing supplies for Raspberry’s tavern for several months now, making it the longest period of steady work that Celestia could remember having. 

Besides stocking shelves, in prior times she had found work as a housekeeper, a courier, a waitress, and nearly every other position that she could care to name. Employment in Eridian never came easily, especially as more ponies made like Raspberry and sought their fortunes elsewhere. 

Still, regardless of what there was, Celestia would do it. That was simply the way of life here. At least she had always had these two to share the rough times with.

“We’ll find something. We always do,” Capstan spoke up from behind, his gravelly voice echoing in the silence of the alley.

“So many ponies are leaving these days,” Celestia mused. “Soon there aren’t going to be any businesses left in need of a few hooves.”

“Like I said, we’ll find something,” Capstan returned once more. “If I don’t, then Rosy will have my hide for it!” He laughed at his half-joke, but Celestia didn’t feel her spirits rise. It was hard to smile under this grey sky, even as normal as seeing it had become over the course of her life. Even so, she agreed with him. They would find something else. They had to.

The clouds on the horizon edged nearer as they made their own way down the mountainside, avoiding the major avenues and keeping to the back streets. They had to watch each other’s backs to make sure that no ruffians could get the drop on them, as was all too common in these dark areas. But at least there was no danger back here of being run over by a noblepony’s speeding carriage.

By the time that they arrived at the building Celestia had called home for the last six years, the storm clouds were in the process of merging with the constant swirl of purple fog that permanently occupied the sky above the city: the unavoidable mark of the King’s presence. Indeed, the rain was probably only a few minutes away when Rosy got the door for them.

Aunt Rosy was a plump pink unicorn getting on into her elder years, and she was perpetually squinting in an attempt to better see whoever stood in front of her face. Even so, the remaining strands of her mane bounced gently as she bobbed a greeting to each of them. 

“Thank heavens you three got here when you did. You’d best get in while you can; it’s sure to be horrid out there soon.” A silent shard of lightning lit up the horizon as she spoke, the wind starting to gust through the streets with an eerie moan. Celestia shivered, and quickly followed Wickerlock through the open doorway.

Once upon a time, the building had been a much larger residence, perhaps even belonging to a wealthy merchant or noblepony. However, by now much of the original structure had long since fallen in, leaving a bare handful of accessible rooms by the entrance. 

The room she stood in had once been a great hall, with a vaulted ceiling overhead and tapestries adorning the walls. Those tapestries were now merely moth-eaten rags, and the open space of the room, surely once imposing, now served only to emphasize the emptiness of the place. In the near corner, they had built a rudimentary kitchen with an open fire pit, and the cellar was nothing but a hole in the ground where the floorboards had rotted away, now covered by some rags. Off in the far corners they had rigged up a shelter to sleep in, cozy enough to stay warm in the cold of night. Besides that, there was merely an open floor, strewn with dust and debris, and probably all half-rotten just as the cellar had been.

As soon as she was inside, Celestia scanned the room, a very small knot of anxiety bubbling up into her throat just as it did every time. This time, Luna stepped out from behind one of the canvases in the sleeping area, and the six year-old filly’s face lit up as soon as she saw them. “Tia! You’re back early!”

Luna trotted over, and Celestia caught her in a tight hug. “There was a storm coming in, Luna. But we got dinner at least, for a few days.” She kept on holding her sister until the anxiety went away. 

Celestia had long accepted that it was an irrational fear, but she couldn’t keep it down, at least until she could come home and assure herself that her sister was safe. The two of them had been very lucky to find this refuge, after their mother and father had passed. Rosy wasn’t really their aunt, but she had been Celestia and Luna’s midwife, and she had found them on that dark, stormy night, with the King’s mad laughter in the air, when their father had left the room to secure the front door and had never returned.

By the door, Capstan gave Aunt Rosy a light kiss on the cheek. “Is everything already secured here? The roof?”

“To the degree possible, dear,” she returned. “We can get down into the cellar if we have to. How did things go with Raspberry?”

Capstan shrugged. “There was no way that he was going to stay, but at least he paid us double for today as a parting bonus. We’ll have enough to work with for a little while.” He took the sack of potatoes off of his back and lightly tossed it into the kitchen area. Whatever she could do with it would be their supper for the night. “As for tomorrow, we’ll be out looking again, I’d imagine.”

Rosy was already washing off a few of the potatoes, using her magic to hold individual pockets of water in the air for each one. Drinkable water was just as scarce in the city as any other commodity, even though it rained often enough. Something in the magical clouds overhead tainted the rain that fell, which meant that water for washing and drinking needed to be brought in from the countryside. Celestia had worked for a little while as a water carrier, even attempting to sell it herself when her boss had joined the exodus away from Eridian. But the established ponies already had all of the good selling spots.

In the corner of the room, Wickerlock was stretching his legs out on the floor. “I think that I’ve got an idea about that, actually. Something that might be a little more reliable than odd jobs around the city.”

Capstan was stacking wood in the fire pit that sat nestled in the floor. “I’m sure that we’re all ears to hear it, then.”

The young stallion got back to his hooves. “I was having a little chat with Elderberry over lunch today, and he mentioned that his dad’s supplier out in the foothills was always in need of extra labour. The way he put it, so long as you could lift a basket of apples, they’d take you on, and it was good, steady work too.”

Celestia stood up, letting Luna run over to help Rosy peel the potatoes. “The orchards are all far from the city, aren’t they? Far enough to get out from under the clouds. Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to grow anything. That would be too far of a walk for us to get back here every night.”

Wickerlock smiled slyly. “Not this one, at least not the way that Elderberry told it. He didn’t know the details, only that this orchard was much closer to the city than all of the others. We could easily make it there and back on time.”

“That doesn’t make any sense though,” Celestia returned, thinking it over slowly. “Why would this one cider maker have any special right to sunlight?” Eridian’s darkness was the one constant of the city; no matter where a pony went they would always have the sky overhead to remind them of the King’s presence.

“Because he’s a traitor,” Capstan answered from the fire, which he had set alight with a match. He spat over his shoulder as he said the words. “Probably has a right to sunlight because he’s kissed the ground the King walks on or some such.”

“I don’t know about any of that,” Wickerlock returned, fairly less abrasively. “But I don’t think that it would matter too much. A steady job is a steady job, especially with things the way they are. Why take on another position that will last a couple of weeks when we could have solid pay for as far as we could tell?”

“It’s a matter of not supporting the cowards in control of this city,” Capstan said as he returned to the kitchen to collect the potatoes that Rosy had already peeled. “Honest work for good ponies will always be better than the alternative.”

“Well, we’ve got a day or two to spare, in terms of our supplies. We should at least take a look and see what we’d be getting into.” Capstan was pointedly concentrating on his potatoes, and so Wickerlock turned to Celestia instead, his expression earnest. “Some security for once. Wouldn’t that be worth it?”

While Capstan still looked less than convinced, Celestia considered it. There was still a lot about this proposition that didn’t add up, unless of course Capstan was right on his guess. But she couldn’t argue with the logic. “There wouldn’t be an issue with us at least heading down there once. Something steady would change things a lot for us.”

Capstan grunted from the fire, but he didn’t say anything more. He was a stubborn old stallion, but he could be reasonable when necessary. If this opportunity really was everything that Wickerlock said it would be, then Celestia was sure that even Capstan would have few objections. 

Outside, there came a whistle of wind followed by a steady patter of raindrops as the storm broke. With luck, it would pass soon. Getting out of the city into a muddy bog tomorrow morning did not sound like a pleasing proposition at all. However, at this point, Celestia knew she had few options and taking one last glance at Luna, knew it was something she’d have to do.