May the stars guide you sweet princess
The night before the takeover Luna gathered her generals one last time to make sure all was ready for the next day.
“Report.”
“All troops inside the capital are present and are awaiting the designated time to begin the fight”, Bronze Hammer declared proudly.
“The Shadowbolts are in position, all other pegasi are also ready for the upcoming battle”, Nightingale reported. “We will attack the Wonderbolts and the rest of the pegasi guards, before they can even take up arms we would have killed, trapped or incapacitated all of them. The population of Cloudsdale could prove more difficult to handle since there will be an increase number of tourist coming to see the Wonderbolts performance. And how glorious will their final performance be.”
“All soldiers around the capital city will be ready, Canterlot will soon be ours. Er i mean yours my Queen.” Slayer proudly said.
Pyre had her eyes closed. Everypony was awaiting her report, she said nothing.
“Lady Pyre”, the old soldier tried to get her attention, without success.
“Pyre?”, Luna said in a soft voice.
Not many living ponies remember her talking so calmly before. Both princesses were used to using the Royal Canterlot voice when addressing their subjects. Such tones were only used when talking to each other, but as often was the case their conversations would often quickly degenerate into heated discussion, then into arguments, many cursing words were used, some so old that nopony even remembered them. The results were often the same, one sister would leave the room in a fit of rage usually breaking doors in their path, sometimes injuring servants, but the castle itself would suffer the most.
Canterlot castle was build to take a beating, the hardest stone was used in its construction, all of it brought from far away lands and magically enchanted to stick together. But no stone, no matter how strong the unicorn that enchanted it was, could resist the magical might of a infuriated goddess, seeking something to channel all their anger towards.
Luna’s reaction took the entire room by surprise, many jaws were dropped, and pants would have been darkened if ponies ever wore pants. One thought passed thru the ponies minds, had our future queen finally snapped, had her rage reached a point where even screaming and yelling would not reduce it? or was she not even trying to reduce it. The all took a couple of steps away from the zebra preparing to shield themselves from whatever magic Luna would release to punish the insolent creature.
It never came. After a while the two soldiers and the Shadowbolt captain’s expression changed from terror to curiosity. They looked at Pyre... then at Luna... back at Pyre... back to princess. It was like they were watching an invisible tennis match, permanently keeping their eyes on a nonexistent ball.
Lunas face was also new to them. Her expression betrayed her feeling, another thing the three saw very little of, except rage, they saw rage a lot. The look on her face was an odd mix of confusion, curiosity and worry.
Pyre’s eyes suddenly open and she began to speak, having the full attention off everypony. All of them got closer to her to head what the shaman had to say, even Luna stretched her neck across the table so she would miss a word the zebra would say.
“I see.” After taking a short break she resumed. “My Queen I had a terrible vision, while I see your plan unfolding exactly as planned, the inevitable will still happen. If we keep on this course of action Celestia will somehow defeat you, banish you to the moon, while the rest of us will be executed for treason.”
“Are you sure about that shaman?” Luna asked after regaining her posture with a flat emotionless voice.
“My ability to see the future is... limited, to say the least. Images are blurry, and often chaotic, they appear before me with no rime or reason, the voices sometimes do not match the images as well, but, I strongly believe that this is the most possible outcome.”
“Is there no way to change the future? Is there nothing that can be done to ensure our victory?”
“I cannot say. I can only see a few years into the future, and only one future is visible to me now, regardless of our action. War is imminent. If we do not attack her, she would eventually catch wind of our complot and the result will be the same. Only a miracle could lead us to victory. A miracle or a way to see all of time. Both equally impossible.”
“My Queen, what is your decision? should we continue on this course of action, or wait for another opportunity to present itself?” the younger general asked.
“I do not know”, Luna said to herself making sure no pony was able to hear her. “Pyre are your agents in place?”
“Yes my Queen. Everypony is ready and is only awaiting for the time of the attack to arrive. So, we are going to go thru anyway... My Queen?”
“I do not know”, again Luna was talking to herself. “Leave us, we will weigh the options tonight, have your troops prepare to attack regardless. Tomorrow at first light meet us again here and we shall inform you on our course of action.”
“The night shall last forever” the four ponies said together, before three of them left the room leaving Pyre and Luna alone. After a moment of silence the zebra spoke.
“Regardless of your course of actions my Queen, I will still expect to receive what I was promised. I would greatly prefer to use your sisters, but if it comes down to it, I would gladly take yours.”
“Do not worry, one way or another, tomorrow you shall have the thing you so much desire. There are a few things matter to us, and our word is one of them. Rest assured that no matter what decision we will take, by tomorrow, you will be played in full. Now leave us, we have many things to consider before the sun rises.”
“The night shall last forever, my Queen. May the stars guide you well. Good night my Queen, rest well.” and with that she left.
Luna let out a deep breath and headed towards her quarters. She passed her bad winged guards who all stood in attention and greeted her with a “Hail Princess Luna, diarch of Equestria.”, the words did not seem to bother her at all that night. the princes entered her room and shut the giant doors behind her.
Her room was simple, a sturdy wooden bed stood in the opposite side of the room, giant by pony standards but barely large enough for her to sleep comfortably in, covered by dark blue sheets and with only slightly lighter colored pillows, all covered by small white stars woven into the fabric. Beside the bear stood a wooden nightstand where she would often put her crown and chestpiece before going to bed.
On the wall to her left stood two large windows and a door that lead to a balcony that oversaw both the gardens and the university, two things she was very important to her. Several flower pots handed from the walls, plants herself discovered an foundly names Nocturnum, since they only seemed to blossom during the night.
While on the wall to the right of her she could see a the tapestry that depicted all of her greats acts as diarch of Equestria. The major one would always involve her sister and seemed to be almost lifesize, although stylised. Like the creation of Equestria by the two sisters, the defeat of Discord lord of Chaos, the banishment of King Sombra and the first changeling war. There were other larger one of her and her army, the Night Guard, mostly about her slaying some monster or defeating some army long, long ago. Between them and far apart were the rest of her achievements, the first tax law, the rights of stallions declaration, because as we all know for the longest time Equestria had always been a matriarchal society. The founding of the first coed school and of the canterlot university, but none of these larger than her hoof. She could take the tapestry, have two others made and it would have stilled not filled her wall, while her sisters had long since been moved out her room and into the throne room since there simply was no more room to add any other great acts.
Other items in her room was a oval mirror, that over the course of years caused many sad feeling from Luna. A desk covered with all manner of parchments and books. And rather large metal chest engraved with a giant stone carved into the form of a halfmoon resembling her cutie mark. Inside it stood her armor, not the flimsy chest piece she wore around the castle, but her real battle armor, forged from the stars themselves, her hoof and cannon guards, her chest pieces that saved her life more on one occasion, as well as her helmet. Witch she proceeded to pick up.
She looked awhile into the dirty battered old helmet, looking at her reflection. And after a while she could have sworn that her irised began to think until only a small slit remain, just like that of a lizard or of a dragon, as well as her blue mane darken until it became black. Paying very little thought to it, chalking it up to her fatigue or just being a trick of the light.
She thought a lot of the matter at hoof, but every plan, every strategy that came into her mind already had been thought of before, and for whatever reason she and her generals said that it would fail. Nothing new came into her mind. No brilliant new plan, no clever ruse, no secret weapon that she could use tomorrow or anytime in the future for that matter. All fell short when compared to the one that could be put into motion in just a few hours. The shaman said that it would most likely end in death of her followers.
Should she risk the life of thousands of her loyal soldiers, thousands more of her sisters and of countless civilians that would be caught in the battle? Should she? Could she? These questions tormented her long into the night, but no answer came to her.
It has long since passed half past three, the meeting was in a little over two hours. She should have long been busy that night with surveying the lands of Equestria for any dangers to her subjects, just like her sister was doing during the day, instead of plotting to overthrow her sister and seize power. But by now she felt tired. Maybe just for a night, maybe just tonight she could do what everypony did and rest, maybe tonight all the evils that plagued the lands would follow her into the land of dreams, and everypony would be safe.
After a loud and rather embarrassing yawn, she finally decided to go to bed and sleep for an hour or two, whatever her decision would be it would come to her in the morning. For now she would sleep in the warmth and comfort of her bed. Before closing her eyes she took a look towards the ceiling. As per her request, a long time ago the domed ceiling or her room was painted with a faithful reproduction of the night sky.
“Huh, impressive, they got all the constellations right, we should have thanked them.”
“Sleep well little one, sleep under starry sky, sleep now, dream and we shall soon meet.” a voice could have been heard in her room, but Luna had long since fallen asleep.
And she slept, and she dreamed, many dreams formed in her mind, many nightmares. Dreams of her defeat, dreams of her their deaths, dreams of her banishment for all of time, dreams of her subjects thinking that their goddess had abandoned them, dreams of the lies her sister would spin about her in the years to come, dreams of everypony forgeting her and slowly vanishing into cold dark nothingness.
What a nightmarish night she had.