//------------------------------// // Year 21 // Story: The Reign of the moon // by Fluttering_Ashes //------------------------------// “The first step is always the hardest one to take.” That’s what her nanny had always told her. It was certainly true now. The first few years of her rule were….troubled. Luna spent the majority of time in reclusion, sobbing over her sister. She wasn’t even able to bring herself to set hoof in her foalhood home. The place held too many memories, ghosts of the past that haunted her, and brought painful tears to her eyes. She grieved for a solid decade, as the new capital city was established, settled on the eastern side of the mountain near the center of her kingdom. The mountain had never had a name before, she and her sister had never been able to think of one that quite fit…but with the castle’s completion she thought the time was right and the name came easily. She named the city Canterlot, and the mountain below Mount Canter. Luna tried her hoof at politics after Canterlot’s completion, tried to run things the way her sister would…but she found that she had been a bit more…secluded than she thought in her self-imposed decade of exile. The mares and stallions whom she had protected from her sister had turned on her. Everpony had loved Celestia, everypony thought their daytime princess could do no wrong! Not even a hundred ponies had witnessed Celestia’s rage firsthoof. Many in the kingdom thought Luna a schemer, taking her royal sister out of the picture so that she could have the seat of power all to herself. Luna was appalled! To think the ponies thought so little of her! To even consider that she had done this for her own personal gain! She ignored such allegations, and tried to keep status quo for a few years; she held open court, she passed judgment on criminals there in Canterlot, attended events, and all the things her more outgoing sister had done. It still wasn’t enough however. Within ten years of ruling the kingdom alone she had had no less than 23 attempts made on her life! After the 23rd would-be assassin had been taking away, ranting, raving, and shouting obscenities at her she finally decided to make a change. This all stemmed from the ponies’ belief that she had banished her sister to gain the throne for herself. They saw her as the evil power hungry monster that hid in the shadows and struck down their beloved princess. She’d just have to change that image! And so she sent a summons to the leaders of every village in her kingdom, at the time there were only 11, not counting Canterlot itself. Each pony was brought before her, and when each had been gathered she cleared her throat. A hush fell over the hall in an instant. She rose from the throne and quietly trotted down the stairs that lead to it. “In my sister’s day” She began softly, walking around the assembled ponies, ignoring that stabbing sensation she felt deep in her heart at the mention of her beloved sibling. “There were only two ponies on the throne; my sister and myself. I know these last few years have been troubled. I know a lot has gone wrong; the fires in Everfree, the flooding on the islands of Manehatten, the food shortage in Trottingham. I know I’ve made mistakes, I admit…my sister was better at this than I am, and I know had she been here…things would be a lot different.” The assembly muttered quietly as she paused; some were worried, some were simply curious, some simply had no idea how to feel. She trotted back to the stone steps leading up to the throne. “But, sadly I am not my sister…and in light of that… the reason I called you all here” She turned her head and called. “Saga, could you come here please?” Quiet footsteps quickly followed. As Saga entered the room most of the assembly gasped. Very few had seen a dragon before, and usually when they did it was a fully grown monster of a dragon, none the size of the baby dragon that quietly made her way to Luna, her magenta scales shinning in the candle light, her cyan spines matching her eyes beautifully. The dragon was the sole reason Luna had recovered so quickly; she had found Saga’s egg while out walking one night, and had hatched it no more than 6 years after her fight with her sister, making little Saga about 14, barely a toddler in dragon years! And in truth Saga had been the closest thing Luna had ever had to a child. “You called your highness?” The little dragon asked, a scroll tucked under one arm, an ink pot held firmly in her clawed hand, and a feather quill tucked behind one ear spine. “Take this down” she said primly, gathering herself. Saga quickly sat in front of Luna, unfurling the scroll, dipping her quill in the ink, poising the pen at the top of the scroll. “I, Princess Luna, hereby decree any settlement of 500 ponies or more will henceforth be considered a township, must register with the royal house, and must provide a minimum of one representative and a maximum of two to the Equestrian Council. Furthermore I, Princess Luna, hereby decree that the Equestrian Council members must be elected by a majority vote within their respective townships every 10 years and that the Council shall be given full proxy power in the way of law making and decisions of the country, second only to the Princess herself, whom reserves the right to overturn the council’s decision, an act that here after will be referred to as a veto. Laws, royal requests, and matters of national importance brought before the council will be voted upon, in the event of a tie the princess will be notified and she shall make the final decision. A royal scribe shall be assigned to the Equestrian Council who shall document the events within council meets which the acting princess shall review at the end of every lunar cycle, and the princess will withhold the right to dismiss any council members from active duty.” Drawing breath she looked at the assembled ponies, all of who were silently staring at her, as if she had just sprouted a second head, or had just been speaking Prench. She looked at Saga, who was still silently scribbling, attempting to catch up with the lunar princess. This was for the best, she decided, perhaps her sister could have kept the power to rule within the royal house, but she was not her sister. This had to be done “Now then” She said, quickly taking the quill from Saga as she finished, giving the scroll her signature and stamping it with the royal seal. “I suggest you all head back to your homes, pick out your representatives wisely and have them pack, they, and their families will be staying within the castle walls while they sit on the council. Good day to you all.” The assembly dispersed, Luna returned to her throne with a sigh, Saga joining her, sitting on the floor next to the golden throne. “That was….” Saga started, letting the sentence hang in the air. Luna sighs and looks down at the floor. “Saga, do you think I did the right thing? I mean….do you think she’d understand?” Saga paused quietly, collecting her thoughts. She only ever heard of the warm, loving sister from Luna, the times they had played, the times they fought, even Celestia’s quirks which Luna really seemed to miss. She was the only thing alive right now who could say she knew how Celestia had been without actually meeting the mare herself. “Well Princess, it’s clear to me that your sister liked to take the reins, liked to be in the lime light. If she were here now I doubt she’d do what you just did.” Luna flinched a bit, and started to speak, but Saga interrupted her before she even got started “But I also know that she loved her sister, and she’d understand, if things can’t be done a certain way, then change has to happen, and she’d love her little sister doing things her own way.” Luna let out a sigh again, looking down at her hooves. Saga watched her for a moment before asking “Didn’t you tell me that when you had first tried to move the stars around everypony thought it looked all wrong? You told me your sister was the only pony who stuck by you as you made new constellations.” Luna couldn’t help but smile shakily. “Yes…she even kept the sun down an extra hour so that everpony could see the arrangement I had settled on.” “Well there you go, she’d be proud to see you doing things your own way, and she’d support you the whole way! I know it!” Luna smiles and gently hugs Saga. “Thanks” That night Luna settled into bed, sighing softly as sleep overtook her. In an irony of ironies the princess of dreams had none of her own. Instead of falling into a world of fears and flights of fancy as many did, she fell into a world of swirling stars, each star representing a dream somepony was having somewhere, a little window into the mind of every sleeping subject in her kingdom. In the old days she used to help her subjects as best she could with their problems, one dream at a time, seeking out the nightmares and doing a bit of counseling. But lately one star in particular occupied her attention. The largest one that sat directly overhead unmoving, unchanging, and always there; her sister’s dream star. Over the past 20 years she tirelessly entered her sisters dreams, night after night, trying to help her with the anger, and hatred in her heart. Every night she got a little closer, chipping away the armor around her sister’s mind. Tonight, was different, tonight was the night she finally broke through. Diving into her sister’s dream she found it, once again, nothing but a deep black pit, heat, and smoke surrounding on all sides, shadowy things snapping and snarling from all sides, and through it all the never ending feeling of panic. It was a simple dream, but in her state, woven into the sun, Luna couldn’t expect much more from her sister. She began to walk through the smoke, weaving in and out of the dream’s fabric. A dream was like a piece of cloth to her, it was woven into a flat piece, a picture that everpony else saw, but she saw the individual threads, woven together to create it. She knew her sister’s rage and resentment had created the dream, but what she didn’t know was what had sparked the fire in the first place. She had been working for 20 tiring years, just trying to find that answer, always blocked by her sister’s mind, only conscious enough to bat her away when she got too close. She followed the path she had trotted down over the past few weeks, allowing the little thread of dream material to lead her. After twenty long years of labor, her journey finally bared fruit; a memory, or at least a fraction of one, determination, and fear, flashing lights and dark shadows flickering across her mind’s eye as she examined it. A flash of color, bright green, and her sister’s voice, filled with fear and shock. “Luna!” Before she could examine it further a wall shot up and expanded outwards, sending her flying downwards and away from her sister’s dream. She shot back up, pounding on the shielding that had covered the star, but it would not give. Sighing, she settled her spectral-self back down. That day was connected somehow…she had to find what had happened.