//------------------------------//
// 2 — Fire Sun 
// Story: To Keep Light in Eternal Darkness 
// by scifipony 
//------------------------------//

My moonstones lit the polished wood chamber in which we foals, and others known to be brats, gathered to learn our letters and numbers. My tummy pleasantly full with hay sprinkled with last week's oats, I watched a workmare chalk words on the big black slate on the wall with a tap-tap-tap. I stood at a table in the back because I could see over all but the eldest and my eyes were good. That meant I didn't have to worry about a brat pranking me by pulling my tail or throwing mud in my mane while I concentrated on learning a new word or something about how the world worked.

Being at the back had an occasional disadvantage. Another workmare opened the door at the front of the room. "Blue Moon, come hither."

The foals giggled and sniggered as I walked past them all. A spit ball hit my cutie mark, but I clamped down and refused to buck or even acknowledge I'd been hit.

What bother!

I followed down a hall of newly-lit candles toward the front entrance. I was missing the one interesting thing in my day, for what? To be told to tumble my stones better? To be paddled for not concentrating last evening when searching for moonstones? That last made me shudder.

When I turned the corner behind the workmare, I froze.

Outlanders.

I'd had heard about... the salon. Few ponies were adopted, but when one was, they visited the salon. Satiny lounge pillows of red and green filled it along with tables and a six arm candelabra. Fat wide white candles burned brightly, dispelling the darkness. They smelled of what I'd later learn was sandalwood. Moreover, the white unicorn giant reclined on the cushions; her horn glowed a warm lemon yellow, adding brightly to the candles, but not glaringly. She lit every nook of the room, all the way to the high gnarled ceiling, everything except, ominously, for the mote of darkness directly behind her. Her pegasus companion, also a mare, hovered lazily in the air. Both had magic, not simply the obvious in the unicorn's light, but in that the winged-pony beat the air with little more effort than a fan, but it kept her aloft. If not magic, what? For a moment it fascinated me.

"Blue Moon. Come. Now."

As I trotted up, the unicorn remarked in a sweet, clear voice, "Hurricane, you were right! She is a tall filly."

I understood voices and how they could lie. Nopony adopted the gangly ones. I stepped within the threshold of the salon and knelt on the wood floor, looking down. My eyes burned suddenly and I blinked away incipient tears. Had I actually hoped? And if so, why?

"Yes, but look at her cutie mark."

The light cast by the horn light shifted behind my eyelids.

"Remarkable. She's a painted pony with a crescent moon in a sea of night. Seer would go crazy over the iconography, but she's an earth pony. Not a unicorn. She has no magic."

"Tell Smart Cookie that! I dare you," Hurricane said.

"B-but flying ponies must have magic—" I said, looking up at the unicorn, feeling she had somehow read my train of thought. Why couldn't earth ponies, then? 

My gaze stuck at her eyes. They were violet and they sparkled, seemingly with delight. Her mane drew my attention, though. Where the hood of her cloak revealed it, it was startlingly pink, but with a green streak. Though all the windows were closed to the early dawn light outside, her mane flowed ever-so-slightly as if there were a breeze, and there wasn't any. The candle flames burned steadily and smokelessly. I looked back to her face; I saw dark circles under her eyes, which reminded me I was tired, also, after a long night.

I finished, "—How can such slowly moving wings otherwise hold them up then?"

The workmare stomped a hoof. "Mind," she said.

I looked to my hooves.

The unicorn said, "Please, ma'am. We want to hear who Blue Moon is, not who you want her to be."

The workmare stiffened; hard to miss in my peripheral vision. "You are outlanders. I do not think you understand. You stand here, letting this foal think you might adopt her, but I seriously doubt adoption is your intention at all. Neither of you are earth ponies, let alone Babeloin citizens. The cost of the approvals from town elders won't be trivial, and from the looks of you two, I'm not sure that it isn't because you haven't brought your husbands so much you simply are not married. As outlanders, the workhouse shall require proof."

The pegasus settled onto her verdigrised bronze horseshoes with a clatter. Her eyes narrowed to the look a workmare got before throttling a misbehaving brat. 

The unicorn touched her on her withers.

Hurricane looked at the hoof, then her companion's face. "Celestia?"

The unicorn shook her head before reaching into her cloak. She produced a golden coin on a hoof. 

The workmare stepped forward and said, "Two."

Pocketing the bits, the workmare walked out of the room. "If the outlanders scare or worry you, call out." The door latched behind her.

The unicorn for her immense size, didn't look that old—maybe in her late teens? The pegasus looked much older, maybe the age of my mother would have had, had I known her. 

Both smiled at me. Adults never smiled at me. It felt... 

Disconcerting.

"How old are you?" Celestia asked.

"About six?"

"You don't know?" asked Hurricane, astounded.

I shook my head.

Celestia said, "Six? With a cutie mark? I'd not have guessed a day under ten, at least, with her stature." She studied me. "Do you like the moon?"

"I adore her."

The pair inhaled simultaneously. They looked each other in the eye as if what I had said had meant something special. Their gazes locked, Celestia said, "The magic in the potions Smart Cookie mixes have to come from somewhere. That somewhere could be somepony, not simply the plants and detritus the earth pony uses."

"From Smart Cookie?" Hurricane asked and looked at me. "Anypony can learn to use an amulet, and so, yeah, that makes sense..." She looked back at her companion. "I'm beginning to wish you'd had more time to study magic at the Collegiate before Queen Platinum sent us to follow your lead."

The pegasus stepped closer; I stood in response. I scented metal and sweat, and a hint of lavender. Muzzle to muzzle, she asked, "Can you do magic?" Amber eyes blinked at me as an eyebrow rose. She had had oats for breakfast. I smelled that rare treat, butter.

Wealth.

My heart instantly sank. I was no unicorn. Yet again, that hope thing had risen inside, and it wasn't fair that that the monster tore at me. But then I had a thought: "Celestia said, 'Has no magic' not 'do magic'," I pointed out. "Do you 'do magic?'"

Hurricane backed off, nodding to Celestia. "She has a point."

"She does, indeed." To me: "Blue Moon is a pretty name."

"I chose it myself."

"You did?"

"Uh, huh. I had no name so everypony called me Blue because that's what color I am, but I didn't like that."

"Yeah. It's lame. Like somepony calling me Rainbow."

"When I learned the moon was called The Moon, I insisted foals call me Blue Moon until they did." I stuck out my chest proudly.

"You said you 'adore' the moon. Do you know the phases of the moon?"

"I do. New, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full, waning gibbous, last quarter, waning crescent, new. I watch her all night."

"All night?"

"I work at night..." I paused to yawn. I knew most ponies slept at night, but I'd already put my hoof in my mouth, so I continued with a cough, saying, "and I watch her. She's my friend. I know all her moods."

"Her moods?"

"Mostly, she's sad," I said.

Celestia's breath caught and I think I froze. She unfolded herself, stepped off the pillows, then folded down in front of me. It was from her that the sandalwood perfume wafted, not from the candles. Her violet eyes looked into mine and she blinked. She tossed her head, which caused the point of her horn to arc frighteningly by my left ear. That released much of her very long mane. It settled like a cloud to the ground, but, like a grounded cloud—like a fog—it seemed to have a life of its own, writhing gently, though the room had no draughts. I found myself staring.

"How do you know?"

"I know." I tapped my chest with a hoof, feeling the percussion in my heart. "I know."

"Where is she?"

I pointed instantly, for, even inside, I knew exactly where the moon rested. It wasn't a simple opposite the bright part of the dawn a brat might have chosen. I knew this.

Celestia's eyes momentarily unfocused as she thought, then she nodded. I knew her next question.

I said, "I pray to her and pray with her. I gather her tears. I love the nights we spend together and wish they could last forever. When I can, I protect her from that bully of a sun. She fears the sun and I know why."

"Why?" Celestia and Hurricane asked in unison.

"The sun overwhelms her, blinds her. Most ponies are happy to play in the sunlit day, but sleep through her night. Who wants to be lonely—?"

I gasped and stopped talking. I was talking about myself! I wasn't like most ponies. I was totally talking myself out of being adopted; I wasn't normal. I was gangly and gawky and sullen; worse, I stayed up all night. 

I sighed deeply and turned for the door.

Celestia stopped me with a hoof. "Don't go."

"You don't want me. You can't want me."

"Nopony should be unwanted."

"Do you know how many foals live here?" I cried.

I turned with more force, but now she had me with two hooves, and for a moment it turned into a hug. But I was gangly and gawky and appeared fragile. She pulled back, but I no longer turned away. I felt a warmth surging through me from where I'd felt her forelegs around my side and neck.

I stood blinking again. Stupid tears! A waste of salt. It would probably have helped my chances had they showered down that moment. 

All I did was blink.

Celestia said, "Blue Moon. Perhaps we could pray together for the moon? She must be weary after such a long night's work, being full all night and shining from all the way in the crystal sphere to illuminate the wide wide world. It's time for her to go to bed. Like you, I gather. You do look sleepy."

I yawned. "A 'ittle bit."

"May I lay my horn on your forehead."

I evaluated the end of the spiral. It looked sharp. "Not the pointy bit."

"I'll be careful."

"All right."

It resembled slightly translucent carved alabaster and felt warm after it pushed down my mane. I felt and listened for the moon. In moments, I sensed her presence the same way (but differently) that I would know a workmare or another foal shared the room: Breathing. Change of sound. Echos. Warmth. Incidental movement. 

The moon noticed, like when I knew somepony glared at me. 

I began to pray. I won't bore you with the what, because it's like a lullaby or the babble you share with a foal too young to know what you say, or a song a nightingale shares with it's cohort to say "I'm here. Let's be friends." Also, it's personal, so I shan't say more.

Celestia's horn warmed, making me tingle all over. The faint tinkle, like the wind chimes the head master kept in his window, grew. It smelled like pepper and crinkling autumn leaves. The moon's cool strength rose through my hooves to fill my heart.

It startled me when I felt our breathing synchronized. Maybe our hearts beat in time, too. 

After much prayer, and some cajoling, the tension left the sky as the moon sunk below the horizon. Surprisingly, I also felt the sun move. I jerked but didn't act. The warmth that filled the room and radiated from her horn mirrored the contentment of my friend—

My eyes fluttered open. The unicorn giant trembled as she unfolded herself and rose to her full towering height, all the time whispering, "No, no, no. I can control it. I can..."

I stepped back until my flank pressed against the door. 

Her horn filled with a brilliant orange-red. This wasn't the pleasant light of her horn from before. The angry glow heated the room like hot coal in a fireplace. I smelled the scorched smell I sometimes smelled passing where the older foals toiled with steam irons in the laundry.

Between her magic, and Hurricane's deft tugs and pulls with her teeth and her wings, they tore off her cloak and flung it aside. Little flames, like oil on-fire dripped down Celestia's horn to her head and neck, and spread, trying to engulf her body, but not consuming her! She breathed rapidly and deeply, straining, I think to stop the terrifying spread. Her eyes turned from violet to violent orange as if becoming windows to a furnace inside.

The flames burnt but left no smoke. They crackled and hissed, though, like from a log in the fireplace.

Hurricane took no chances. She flung the pillows toward the walls and slid the table aside. "Okay, okay. Maybe it would be better just to do it and get it over with?"

"Right," the fire unicorn agreed, turning toward the dawn, her eyes closed. 

I stood there, watching, horrified and fascinated. Magic.

She faced the sun as accurately as I had pointed out the moon. She reared, which pressed her horn to the ceiling momentarily, and pedaled her legs. Of a sudden, I felt a familiar pull. Her mane and tail lofted, beating against her neck and flank in a non-existent wind that could only be unseen magic. It flowed from the earth and billowed by me and into her heart instead of mine, then through her horn in the direction of the sun.

It was what I had done this morning with the moon, nowhere as violently. It was what I had minutes prior done with the moon together with Celestia, but on a terrifying scale.

Day broke and the sun rose.

Celestia had a cutie mark: A yellow sun blazed on her white flank.

Tears streamed from my eyes and dripped down my cheeks. Tears of fear. They had to be. Each moonstone-like drop doubtlessly reflected the red from her sun and her fire.

Celestia's fiery magic ceased. It vanished in a blink along with most of the heat. It had lofted not only her mane and tail, but levitated her whole body. She settled to her hooves. Hurricane leaned into her, steadying her. I sensed the pegasus' professionalism as she rapidly dressed the recovering giant in the cloak while kicking the pillows back into place. She'd accomplished that, and begun pushing the table back, as I felt with a rear hoof for the door pull.

I studied the small scorch mark on the ceiling. The interior wood of the living tree had knots and rings, gnarled elbows and swirls of brown; it wouldn't be noticeable until pointed out.

I pulled open the door.

Hurricane said, "She's the one?"

Celestia answered, "She's the one."

As I backed from the room, the workmare bumped me aside as she walked in.

I staggered, but kept on backing, my hide cooling with sudden sweat, ticking nervously. 

This unicorn had the mark of the sun on her flank. 

This unicorn was the one I sensed in my prayers, the one that forced the moon from the sky when she was afraid to leave, again and again. 

This unicorn was the one who raised the sun.

I kept on backing until I reached the corner, then crept around it.

I nevertheless heard the unicorn say, "We are definitely adopting Blue Moon."

"Is that so? Bring your husbands next time."