//------------------------------//
// Moonlit Dawn 
// Story: Eljunbyro 
// by Imploding Colon 
//------------------------------//

	Princess Luna's face tensed up.  She tilted her neck up towards the heavens as her wings stretched wide.  A bright point of light pulsated off the tip of her horn, then traveled down into her forehead.  Soon, a golden glow overcame the shadowy vapors emanating from her being.

Then, over the east mountains, with the grace of a dissolving storm, the bright morning sun rose.  It staggered at first, like a foal learning how to trot, but soon found an even pace that took it ever higher into the crisp, clear sky.

Luna exhaled heavily, her face and brow sweating as if she had just galloped a marathon.

"Crazy..."  I mumbled, lying on the edge of the palace's marble platform a few feet away from the Princess.  "So you're raising the sun now?"

Taking a deep breath, the midnight alicorn folded her wings and sat up straight beside me.  "Affirmative, albeit with greater or lesser success.  It's not all that difficult a task in theory, but we hath found ourselves lacking in the sheer strength our sister possesseth.  She was always the more powerful one.  As for we..."

"You were more graceful?" I muttered.

"More reserved, we suppose."  Luna trotted over and squatted beside me, her folded limbs mimicking my slumped stance.  "Raising the moon has been no simple task, but it was always a quiet one, a performance that greatly lacked an audience.  There was a time when we detested such little attention, but these days we revel in it.  There's a certain tranquility to monitoring the one beacon of the night, an atmosphere that promotes reflection and philosophy.  It's calming, and we shall sorely miss it now that we are in charge of the day as well."

I glanced up at her, chewing on the edge of my lip.  "How... h-how long will you have to be controlling the sun as well as the moon?"

Luna's nostrils fumed gently as she stared off into the burning horizon.  "For as long as we have to.  For as long as our sister's task is to seal off the chaos rift in Ponyville."

Sighing, I stared down at the golden pendant around my neck.  "It's really that bad, huh?"

"If unchecked, the fissure in reality will spread.  The unbridled chaos that occupies this pocket of space in which the world is suspended will consume all of Equestria and the lands beyond.  The realm of harmony is like a vacuum, and it begs pure chaos to inhabit every corner of it, to pollute it.  Currently, it is our sister's task to ward off that pollution, at least until the raw power manifested within the chaos rift subsides."

"How long would that take?"

"Fifty, one hundred, maybe even several hundred years," Luna said calmly.  She gazed unemotionally at me.  "It is but a season in alicorn existence.  But, as for our little ponies, it means their very livelihood is at stake.  Celestia has no choice but to wait out the chaos rift's fury.  The Elements are no more, so there is nothing that exists physically upon this plane that can channel enough harmony into the rift and seal it any more swiftly."

I felt a lump forming in my throat.  My hooevs shivered, so I tucked them under my forelimbs as I murmured into the winds, "Why did the Elements... blow up the way they did?  Why did they backfire?"

"That is a mystery our sister and we are at a loss to determine," Luna said.  "The most immediate hypothesis is that the Elements were not complete when the spell to seal away chaos was cast.  As a result, there was a burst of erratic feedback, and chaos itself ruptured its way through the leylines that made the Elements a cohesive unit."

"So you're saying that the Elements went kablooey because they weren't all together when..."  I took a deep breath.  "When my fr-friends tried to take on Discord?"

"Such has never happened before," Luna said.  "It is all a matter of speculation.  If we had known that such a castrophic thing would have occurred, surely we would not have agreed to letting the fate of Equestria rest in thy mortal hooves.  We would have... considered another option, along with our sister."  Luna's face stretched thoughtfully.  "We are... most exceedingly sorry, Rainbow Dash."

I seethed, shaking my head with a toss of my mane.  "No, Princess..."  I heard my voice cracking; I didn't care.  "I'm the one who should be sorry..."

"Rainbow Dash..."

"I let them down."  I scraped my front hooves against the marble as I gritted my teeth.  "I wasn't there when they needed me.  I was their missing piece, and they all blew up."

"Thou were under the influence of an enchantment that no living pony could resist—"

"I was weak!" I jumped up to my hooves, frowning.  "I was weak and dense and stupid!  I should have realized Cloudsdale wouldn't have fallen!  Discord would have gained nothing from it!  Instead, I let myself get all scared for nothing!  I forgot all about my friends.  I forgot..."  I exhaled painfully, feeling a wave of dizziness come over me.  The pendant weighed heavier as I held a hoof to my head and teetered.  "I-I forgot to be loyal..."

"Young one..."  Luna stood up and braced me with her forelimb.  "Thy judgment was clouded, yes.  But as soon as the fog that took over thy mind cleared, thou made forthwith to the location of thy friends to assist them."

"Pfft.  Yeah."  I exhaustedly glared aside.  "Some timing..."

"Nevertheless, when thou were in possession of thy true consiousness, thou showed nothing short of absolute commitment and love."  Luna gazed gently at me.  "No doubt, thy heart must be in turmoil as we speak.  We wish that we had given thee better news upon waking, but thou has always impressed us with thy honesty and resilience."

I was staring west, towards the sporadic fountain of black energy emanating from Ponyville every few seconds.

"Perhaps there is still time yet to learn more of thy condition—"

"I should see her," I said.

Luna raised her eyebrow curiously.

I looked up at her.  "Princess Celestia.  Your sister.  I need to speak to her."

"Rainbow Dash, perhaps our message was not entirely clear," Luna stood back and said.  "The chaos rift that our sister is guarding reacts to the energy resonating inside thee.  The closer thou art to the location of Discord's demise, the more thy body shall be consumed by chaos.  Thy lease on life is short enough as it is.  If we bring you to Ponyville, thou willst surely die."

I smiled lethargically up at her.  "Tell me something I don't know," I muttered.  Then, with a deep breath, I said, "Take me to her, Your Highness.  Please.  Or I'll fly there myself."