The heartfelt moment was broken when Luna heard a faint moan come from her sister’s crater. She sprang up from Discord, eliciting an “oof” from the god, and walked over to the precipice. Inside, she observed Celestia curled up at the bottom, a grimace on her face.
Luna pressed her hooves against the side of the crater in an effort to slow herself down as she descended, plopped onto the ground next to her sister, and proceeded to hug Celestia as ferociously as possible.
“Ah, my dear sister... what possesses thee, currently, to suffocate me so soon after my slumber?” Celestia squeaked under the force of Luna’s hug.
“Nothing, sister. I’m just grateful you’re back on this Earthly plane.” Luna stated simply. Her feelings extended beyond that, but simply put, it was sufficient. She slightly lessened her crushing hug; but only slightly.
“What’s that supposed to mean? And what happened, anyways? One second I was relaying instructions to you, the next... you’re sitting here, next to me, crushing all of my internal organs. What happened?” Celestia asked, squinting as she opened her eyes. Dim as it might be outside, it was still brighter than the abyss of unconsciousness
“Hyperion... killed you.” Luna said, tears worming their way into the corners of her eyes. “He murdered you, Tia. I had to watch it happen. I couldn’t do anything; I wasn’t fast enough...” Her voice caught, nearly breaking as she recalled the feeling of dread accompanying her flight to Celestia’s would-be grave.
“Wh-...what? Then how am I... here? Alive, I presume?” Celestia was confused, to say the least. “And where is Hyperion now, then? Don’t tell me this is the afterlife.”
“It’s not. At least, as far as I’m aware. And he’s dead. I teleported him to... I don’t know where, but not on this planet. I moved him as far as my magical constraints allowed me. It’s a wonder I didn’t kill myself in the process.” Luna answered, somewhat proudly. “And as for the... ‘alive’ bit, Discord healed you.”
“How? He’d have to expend all of his energy to...” Celestia’s distant gaze suddenly focused as realization dawned upon her. “Oh yeah. We’re mortals now. Which would explain the dying bit. This sucks.”
Luna laughed, a stark release from the reality their world was. “I agree completely. But yes, Discord healed you, Hyperion is dead, and now we’re all happy. Sort of.”
Celestia sat up, meekly embracing her sister. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, Luna. I... I shouldn’t have let my guard down. I won’t let it happen again, I promise,” Celestia said, staring into her sister’s eyes. It was sincere.
Luna sniffled, and returned the embrace. “You had better not. Losing you was... worse than the kingdom. An impossibility suddenly made real. Don’t do that to me again, Tia. We were lucky we had Discord around. What if it happens again?”
“It won’t happen again. I won’t allow it,” came the warm, confident answer. The floodgates burst, and Luna once again broke down into tears for the third time that day. She didn’t care. She had a sister again.
--------------------
Despite the emotional stresses of the day, Luna and her revived sister still had a task to complete. They trudged across the bottom of the massive crater, making slow but steady headway in the direction of the gates of Tartarus. Random lightning bolts of red shot out of the crater, striking indiscriminately at targets they chose. Which wasn’t, admittedly, a whole lot.
“...Girls, this is boring. Boring on an unprecedented level,” Discord remarked drably.
“More boring than one thousand years sealed away in a statue?” Celestia retorted.
“Hey, it was one thousand and one years, thank you. Let’s not forget my reimprisonment.” Discord crossed his arms and stuck out his lip accordingly.
“Oh please, don’t be a baby. You deserved it anyhow,” Celestia stated firmly. “Disturbing the peace and actively destroying harmony? It’s like you forget what ponies are all about.”
“And it’s like you forget what I’m all about. God of Chaos? Ring-a-bell?” Discord cupped his hand in front of his ear and leaned in until he bumped into Celestia, making her stumble slightly.
“Jerk! Stop it!” She giggled playfully. “And no, being a God of Chaos doesn’t excuse ruining harmony; perfection,” Celestia added.
Discord clutched at his chest tragically. “How your words sting! Oh, fine. I suppose I’ll forgive you girls, as long as you don’t seal me away again after we fix this.”
Luna stopped in her tracks, making her presence known for the first time in a while. “Fix this? Are you kidding? I know you can be a jerk, but... Discord. Don’t say things like that.”
This time, Discord really was hurt. “What? Bu-...” He received two muted stares in reply. “Oh come on! It’s like you girls make a point of forgetting my capabilities! I’ve been capable of fixing this for, oh, I don’t know, whenever?”
The two muted stares turned into icy ones composed of daggers. The sisters were speechless in the face of such a revelation, and Discord was feeling the effects of not having told them sooner.
“You girls are idiots. Really. Remember how I turned mostly everything to candy or various articles of food? Everything encompasses a lot of stuff, you know. And how I guided celestial objects through the skies like it was no big deal? And how I just revived a goddess!? Do you really think a silly little thing like moving backwards through time is a big deal to me?” Discord continued spouting off random facts about himself.
Celestia and Luna’s glares had turned to slackjawed expressions. Luna spoke first. “Y-... You mean to tell me... that all... this,” She turned and waved a hoof at the utter desolation around her. “...Could all be... fixed? Undone? Are you serious? No pranks?”
Discord nodded smugly with his arms crossed over his chest. “Mmm-hmm. I’m surprised you girls didn’t ask me, but less surprised because it has occurred to me recently that you two never think to ask for help.”
Celestia shook the expression off her face. “Discord, we... we have no words. You can truly do this? How could we... I can’t even think straight. How can we repay you? Ever?”
Discord assumed a critical thinking expression, thoughtfully scratching his chin with a single finger. “Hmmm... how about freedom from that statue? It seriously sucks being stuck in there. I can’t do anything but stare at the ponies around me. It’s a horrid fate, albeit one I understand I deserve.”
“But... you’re free right now. How can you be freed you when you’re not imprisoned?” Celestia inquired.
“Ah-ha! That’s where time-travel gets a bit tricky. When we undo time’s progress, we, essentially, relive our lives but backwards, and at an accelerated pace, depending on how quickly I choose to go. It sounds weird, and that’s because it is. When I start going backwards, you’ll feel yourself stepping backwards; Celestia will experience death once more, and Luna will have to cope with her loss once more. You’ll both have to deal with Luna blowing up your entire kingdom, again. I’ll get stuck back in that accursed rock, which is why I ask that you free me after fixing the problem that results in all of this wanton destruction.” Discord finished with the diagram he had been drawing in the ground, which was actually just a stick of cotton candy.
Celestia deflated slightly, physically relieved. “Oh, thank the goddesses... or gods, in this case,” she added quickly when Discord eyed her irritably. “Discord... this means more than we can ever express in words or actions. Healing me, and then restoring our entire kingdom, when all Luna and I have done is torment you throughout time...? Why? Why help us like this?” Celestia asked again. She never usually asked questions; this was new to her.
“Because... I don’t know, really. It actually felt really good helping out when Luna needed help, when you were deceased.” Luna blushed slightly at this. “And you know, I’m not a bad guy. I never hurt anypony during my brief reign; did I mess with their mind? Yes. Did I ruin maybe a few friendships? Almost. But I never hurt anypony. All I ever did was have fun. You girls were the ones who assumed I was a bad guy.” Discord said somewhat sadly.
“Well, you did ruin pretty much everything, Discord. Forgive us for reacting accordingly?” Celestia held out a hoof.
“Not even close to accordingly! It was all just for fun! But... okay. I forgive you guys.” Discord grasped her hoof firmly and shook, rattling her slightly in the process.
After recovering, she asked “So what will happen after you stop time at the moment of your choosing?”
“As I said, you will effectively just perform all of your actions backwards up until I stop time again, at which point you will have immediate control of your senses. It’s not too hard to get a grasp on. I only ask that you two come and free me after you’ve dealt with your dilemma. When should I stop time again?”
“Several hours before Cronus hauls himself from the earth. Better, several days before. I want to just go to the mountain and refresh the spell holding the seal. I never thought it would weaken or expire entirely,” Celestia answered.
“Alrighty, you girls ready then?” Discord began to glow slightly as his familiar magic took hold on time itself.
“Wait!” Luna barked. “What will you do after we free you?”
“Hmm... that’s a good question. I don’t think most of Equestria will appreciate me being around after what I’ve done to them, and I’m not always out to make friends; I just like you girls. I’ll just wander the world, flittering to and fro, seeing what’s happening throughout the rest of the world. I can guarantee, if something interesting is happening, I’ll be there,” Discord replied with a wink.
“Very well. Then, take us back home, Discord. We’ll appreciate it forever,” Luna said with a tear in her eye.
“Don’t tell me now! Tell me after you’ve saved the kingdom and freed me! Silly pony, this isn’t goodbye just yet!”
Luna grinned. “Very well. Tia and I will see you when we get there.”
Discord’s magic grabbed onto the fabric of time, two mammoth fists appearing in the sky and grabbing onto the sky itself it seemed. With a grunt, the fists pulled backwards, the sky stretching impossibly, like a quilt may when tugged on.
Luna felt words flowing back into her mouth, a bizarre feeling completely beyond the realm of description that she wasn’t quite ready for. Celestia was similarly confused by the weird feeling.
Both continued backwards through the past few days, Celestia collapsing all at once after being restored by Discord’s magic, and then seemingly flying up to meet Hyperion’s fist for him.
Back still they flew, both reentering the makeshift hut after raising the sun, only for the sun to sink back down and the moon to creep back up.
Eventually the sky lit up with a fire on a grand scale such as the sisters had seen only once, and as they had hoped to never see again. Luna and her sister would have wept had they been in control of themselves, but as the spell continued its effects, both could only watch in horror as they closed in on the explosion, flying backwards from their initial flight vector from the shockwave of the blast.
Eventually, Twilight and her friends regained their physical forms, and the energy drained from Luna’s horn instead of being sucked in with inevitable disastrous consequences.
Cronus dug himself back into the earth where he lay dormant, and the smokestacks of Ponyville gradually receded as the lesser demons from Tartarus flew backwards into their eternal-no-more prison.
Still further back they went, Celestia reliving several wonderful baths and several horribly drab meetings, with Luna not having many meetings or too much company, seeing as she slept through the day.
Time eventually came grinding to a halt with Celestia being midway through lifting a coffee mug to her mouth with her magic. When the timespell unexpectedly came to an end, she dropped the coffee mug in her lap, not expecting to have control of herself so quickly.
“OH GODDESS DAMN IT!!!” She howled as the coffee steamed off of her, irritated both by the pain and the nice brown stain in her pearly white coat. Thought it had regressed quickly and had been over in minutes, Celestia felt as though the spell had taken days. Which, in reality (whichever reality she lived in, she decided), she had.
After telling her servants to bug off and that she was more than capable of handling a little coffee spill, and then removing the excess coffee with a quick pulsation of her horn, Celestia told her advisors to can her day’s plans. As irritated as they were, Celestia knew that meeting with several farmers to discuss an impending lawsuit on whose pineapple bush was whose could wait versus an apocalypse.
She teleported into her sister’s room, where Luna lied sleeping peacefully. “Sister, wake now,” she said gently, coaxing her little sister with a nudge from her hoof. “We’ve got a big day today. Discord really did undo our mistakes; and what’s more, it’ll be another week before the disaster will occur. Discord is... a lifesaver, literally.”
Luna stretched and emitted only the daintiest of yawns, as was her habit when waking up. “*Yawn...* Can’t it wait a few more minutes? We’ve got a whole week...” She slumped back into her pillow, cuddling toward the source of warmth.
“No, sister. That kind of attitude is what allowed this to happen in the first place.” Celestia grabbed her sister in a yellow glow and dumped her unceremoniously on the floor.
“Hey! Brat. I was enjoying that bed.” Luna dusted herself off and stretched like a cat, several joints popping as various oils wormed their way between them, lubricating them to ensure they didn’t clam up when they really, really didn’t need to.
Celestia’s thoughts snapped back to the situation at hand. Daydreaming about joints and her ponies’ silly myths about arthritis wouldn’t help them fix their growing problem.
Luna’s horn glowed as she floated over her royal raiments and donned them, taking a moment to strut in front of her sister and successfully eliciting a groan from her.
“Are you ready?” Celestia asked impatiently.
“Yup, let’s g- WAIT WAIT WAIT,” Luna yelled as she flew into her bathroom.
Celestia groaned melodramatically. “Come oooon, Luna, let’s go! We don’t have all the time in the world!”
“A complexion like this doesn’t maintain itself, you know!” came the echoing answer from the bathroom.
“Uh, yes it does? We’re goddesses, Luna,” Celestia answered lamely.
“Let me do it for the novelty of it, at least! Besides, I look snazzy with this new- *GASP* TIA, I GOT THIS NEW HOOF-POLISH, YOU HAVE TO SEE IT, IT IS INCREDIB- HEY!” Her voice was cut off as she suddenly flew from her bathroom in a yellow glow.
“Come on, let’s go, dork,” Celestia said with a smile on her face.
The giant double doors to Luna’s room opened and light spilled in, revealing her cutie mark emblazoned upon each door in a symmetrical fashion and chasing away the darkness. The two sisters stepped out... or at least one did, while the other floated along beside the first with a proper pouty expression worn on her face.