Long ago, hidden from the narrow vision of scribes and storytellers of the current age, Equestria was not so grand, and its folk were troubled by want and war. The royal family resided among them behind the stone walls of their castle - a mother, a father, and two princess daughters.
The heavy oaken door of their front hall was open, still letting the mid-morning sunlight spill through into the pebbly foyer. Mother was halfway out, kicking fresh mudcatcher straw back inside. Red and yellow songbirds rustled in her living mane, and white butterflies played in a merry cloud around her.
Young Princess Celestia sat inside the shadowy room amid the shafts of light and dust, shielding her muzzle with her hoof. “But mother, we do not wish to foalsit her. It shall be insufferably boring. Her presence shames us. She looks as though she’s slipped and dunked her hindquarters in her chamberpot. And she smells.” Celestia coughed. “Like barrow mold.”
The Queen paused and turned, her fiery orange face lost in the sun. “When didst thou make a habit of falsehood, Celestia?” she sighed. The dewy green hills echoed, breaking her voice into sweet harmonies that changed and wandered of their own accord. “Heed us! No, look here. Patience becometh a princess. Dost thou not know that Luna saith to us, every night as we soothe her in her bed to sleep, that she wishes to be like thee, when she cometh of age?”
“Truly?” Celestia gazed down at her own downy white flank, admiring the beautiful sun that shone there. The mark of life.
The music of her mother’s voice flowed once more. “We speak only the truth. She loveth thee. Look here, Celestia. Be an example, a good sister, and perhaps our worries for her shall be dispelled. We shall be away for an hour, no more. The first golden minaret is to be set atop the tower at Canterlot today. Canterlot the fair.”
Celestia smiled, looking out into the blind bright morning. “Fair and free. When wilt thou let us see it? Is it truly to be a white city, mother? A place of peace, and a symbol of strength against the enemies of ponykind, as father saith?” She batted her lashes, running her long, slender hoof through her mane.
“It is, beloved daughter, star of mine eye. Now remember thee, Celestia, be gentle with thy sister. She is … sensitive.”
“Thy will be done, my Queen.” The thick wooden door closed, shutting out the light and the lilac breeze.
Celestia spread the straw that Mother had left clumped in her eagerness to be off. Sensitive? What royal is sensitive? Luna is unfit to rule, or even to live. Princess Celestia, the Kind, the Wise, will reign one day in splendor and fame from the highest tower of the White City, nurturing the love and noble spirit of her subjects. Luna can stay out of our way, lurking in the servants’ stables where she belongs.
She scattered the last tangle of straw and blew the dust from her hoof. Sensitive? A nitwit, more the like, with the brain of a louse.
She ground her teeth and left the foyer, trotting to the dining hall where she had left Luna. Mother had explained lice just yesterday, how they breed in one’s mane. Nipping and clawing at the scalp all day and all night. Magic was of no use, unless one wished to singe away all of one’s hair to find them. They plagued the low villages, rampant amongst the mortal poor.
Celestia gagged. The wretched poor, with their brutish common tongue, toiling outside their squalid huts every day of their short, miserable lives. They do well to pay homage and tribute to the royals for shepherding them.
Heavy purple tapestries swished and swayed as she passed, revealing for a moment the cold stone blocks they clothed. Some hid doors, secret routes to the kitchens or furnaces, or reeking midden heaps. Others burrowed deep under the hills to rooms Celestia couldn’t name.
Anger quickened her pace, and soon she reached the dining hall. The grand table was set with a single plate, loaded with carrot peels and sprigs of moss.
The swarthy little brat has the strangest tastes. And the torches are lit. The glorious sun is pouring in through the windows, and the torches all are blazing. Father had scolded her just yesterday! Leave her alone for just a moment …
A skipping, singing Luna stumbled into her. Celestia gasped, brushing at her coat where her sister’s snout had bumped her. “Back with thee, vermin! Didst thou even wipe thy slimy mouth?”
“Woopsie! Celes-cha, watch!” The little filly tripped backward onto her charcoal haunches, closed her twinkling aqua green eyes and scrunched her nose. Tiny blue sparks sizzled at the tip of her horn.
The sparks vanished with a pop and a flash. A chirping brown cricket had materialized in their place, probing to and fro with its feelers. It jumped to the ground and out of sight. Luna puffed her scruffy chest and smiled.
Celestia had backed away from the insect and reared. “Oh disdain! Oh filth! Wretched filly! Is that thy best spell?”
“No Celes-cha! We can call the fireflies too. Father taught us the way. We fly with them.”
Celestia sneered and flicked her mane from her rosy eyes. “Pathetic little nit. Thou pretendest to fly.” She turned and snuffed the torches with her magic, sending ribbons of oily smoke spiraling up to the rafters. “Thy wings are puny featherflaps. Say, what hast thou there?”
Luna had hunched down and was peering at something between her hooves. A clear, luminescent pebble. “Smooth moonstones. Father gave them to us for our good behavior at the Summertide races. We were quiet, we obeyed. They are pale like his eyes. We favor them.”
“The races? What dost thou know of the races? Thou art but a filly.”
“No, the moonstones!” Luna giggled and skipped away, flapping her tiny wings as she hopped around the huge table.
Miserable dust clot. Why should she receive father’s gifts, rare jewels a commoner would sell her own foals to purchase? No matter, the imbecile will give them over.
When Luna returned on the other side, Celestia blocked her way. “That will be one moonstone.”
Luna trotted in place. “We are racing!”
“One moonstone, a tribute for Celestia the Wise, for use of her fairway.”
Luna smiled. “One for thee, Celes-cha the White.”
Around she went again, shaking her shaggy blue mane, spinning and prancing. Celestia stood tall and waited, her leering snout raised high.
Just so. A louse, a bloodsucker, a disgrace to all princesses.
When Luna had completed another revolution, she plopped down waiting, a little too close.
Celestia grinned. “Another moonstone for passage.”
And so it went until the scent of the torches had faded, and the sun had moved a few inches across the table. Each time Celestia demanded her toll, and each time Luna replied, “One for thee.”
At last Luna tried her spell, and nothing came. Celestia glared down at her, the collection of moonstones floating about her head like stars.
“I’ll stomp thy nose if thou dost not pay me another tribute!” she growled.
Luna tried again, but again nothing came. “Celes-cha, thou hast taken them all,” she whimpered. “If thou givest some back to us, we can play …”
Celestia’s hoof swung up and pushed Luna’s face. The filly squealed and fell into the table, knocking her plate of carrots and moss to the floor.
“Nitwit! Thou hast broken the plate! Apologize to us and clean it up!”
Luna blinked, unable to look up. “We are sorry, sister. We have disappointed thee.” Her voice broke. Lowering her head, she made her way to the spilled food.
Celestia sighed. It will not do to spend the hour listening to the silly foal chatter and sing nothing rhymes. A princess requires peace and quiet, to reflect on high matters. How to shut the little muskrat’s mouth?
Luna had finished piling the moss back on the plate, and was gathering her carrot peels. Smother her? No, as easy as it would be. Smash her tongue? Blood red besmirches pure white coats. That shall not do. If only there was a black cavern into which she could be led and left behind, an endless pit to swallow her so none would be subjected to her hideous face …
Oh, the Odd Place. Dark enough there. Yes, let her play with the cold bracelets for the hour. Or the rest of her life. Yes, yes! No mother, no father to see.
She craned her neck over the edge of the table. “Luna, be quiet for a moment. Cease thy weeping.”
Luna sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hoof.
“Wouldst thou like to go on a quest?” Celestia continued.
“A quest? Oh yest! Oh yest, Celes-cha, a quest would be best!” The younger princess hopped and nodded her head.
“We shall seek out a hidden room, full of light all day and all night. The way is long and treacherous through the castle.”
“Treacherous?”
“Yes. ‘Tis a secret passage we found when we were thy age, wandering in spite of our nanny. Thou must help us to find the way again: some of it we can recall, but the end we have forgotten.”
“We shall help thee, Celes-cha! We shall help thee find the way to the room of light!” Luna set her plate up on the table. She snatched one of the thick cotton napkins and flipped it over her back. Rubbing her chin for a moment, she leapt to the mantle of the great fireplace and lifted a miniature clock between her hooves.
“The mantle clock? Put that down, Luna, it will not help us.”
Luna hugged it to her chest with one foreleg. “But we must take it. How else shall we know where we are going?”
“But a clock is not for navigation, it’s … never mind. Take it if thou must!” Little biter. Insufferable louse.
Celestia led the way back through the corridor, counting the tapestries. One, three, six, there. Eight, on the right. Here is where dear sweet little sister Luna will learn to keep her mouth shut.
Celestia drew the rich purple cloth aside with her horn, revealing a doorless stone archway. Cold air flowed out, moist and bitter. “Come Luna, lead the way with thy, ah, compass.” As Luna crept into the dark passage, peering at her clock and tapping at its glass face, Celestia sent a faint light into the moonstones wheeling and spinning above her golden crown.
Forward they went, following the narrow way as it cut deep into the earth. At each new choice of directions, Celestia would call out, “left,” or “right,” or “the middle door,” keeping Luna aglow ahead of her in the soft blue light of the moonstones. The echoes of their hoofsteps chattered back and forth between the dusty gray walls and were swallowed by the surrounding darkness.
Before long they came to a hall with four branches. “Halt,” said Celestia, stopping and sitting beside the first door. “We do not remember which of these to take. Say now, Luna, what doth thy compass tell thee?”
“Hmmm,” Luna muttered, lifting her clock into the moonstones’ aura to see. “It telleth … this one. This one, Celes-cha, let us go!”
“Very well,” Celestia replied, her smile hidden in the shadows. “Yes, we remember now.”
They continued as before, Luna leading at the edge of the light while Celestia called out their route. Two minutes, five, fifteen it may have been, all passed by without words, except those of Luna's mumbled songs. The walls remained cold, flat and unadorned, and the air, chill and damp. The only change was the thickening of the dust, marked by hoofprints and strange, long furrows.
At the entrance of a cramped square chamber, Celestia sat down again and lowered the moonstones. Luna slipped unknowing out of their glow and on through the narrow, unlit doorway on the other side. Finally. Celestia looked back over both shoulders - no mother, no father. “Straight ahead,” she called as her sister disappeared, extinguishing the light she had given the stones.
With a golden twinkle of her horn, she released the catches hidden in the ceiling. A thin metal door whispered shut where Luna had entered, sealing the young filly beyond.
Sweet silence. Luna has yet to decipher what has become of her. Soon enough it will dawn on the pestilent foal.
For the door had not shut on an exit, but a slot in the stone, not a tail’s length wide. The inside was rough, unfinished rock, empty except for two iron circlets hung by chains from the ceiling. Who could guess their purpose? None of the court spoke of the tunnels and their secret vaults and chambers, not since the raising of Canterlot.
Such strange bracelets, hidden all the way down here. Who could guess their purpose? None of the court speak of the tunnels and their secret vaults and chambers, not since the raising of Canterlot. There is simply no explanation.
Luna’s voice called out, as if from far away. “Celes-cha? Where art thou? We are lost!”
We need no explanation. Luna is gone at last. Celestia stood and walked to the metal gate. She folded her glittering tail and rested on her haunches, listening.
“Sister? Celes-cha!” There was a scraping at the door, then a soft banging.
There is no way out. Suffocate in the airless dark. Little nit.
“Canst thou hear us? Celes-cha? Celes-cha!” The banging grew louder - urgent and more rhythmic.
Celestia smiled and placed her hoof on the door. She slid it about, finding the place where, on the other side, her sister’s little hooves were pounding. There. So perfect. And no one can see.
In time the banging stopped. There was a rustle, the sound of feathers brushing against stone. Up, up, then down, rising and falling, over and over. It didn’t last long. After a few moments, there was a final loud bang against the door.
Hast thou discovered at last how worthless thou art, dearest Luna? I raise the sun! The light is mine to give, and mine to take. Darkness comes when I decide. And it’s perfect now. Exactly as thou lovest.
Celestia tilted her head back and closed her eyes. Such a wonderful diversion. We can keep Luna here forever. And we could, yes, we could watch the little parasite’s torment unfold. We could come here to mock her every year, every hundred years, mock her malformed spine and limbs, grown to the shape of her prison …
Prison? Prisons are for criminals and the enemy.
Celestia swallowed and turned her rosy eye back once more over her shoulder. Still alone. How long have we been down here? Surely not an hour. Yet, father's wrath shall be terrible if he catches us here. Mayhap it would be best to check on Luna, a quick peek to make sure she isn’t playing a trick. Nothing wrong with that. Then back to the game. Just a few more minutes.
Her long slender horn sparkled again, and the door lifted into its recess above. “Where art thou, thou rotted parsnip? Speak up,” she called into the darkness. There was no answer.
Celestia stood. “Wert thou deceiving us with thy whining? Where art thou?” Kindling the moonstones, she peered into the narrow cleft.
The dark coat was almost invisible in the dim, watery light. Yet something moved, and radiated heat - a little body wedged sideways between the frigid walls, snout pressed into the dust. Luna’s green eyes stared, dull and wide, inches away from the stone edges of the chamber.
The child lay still, her breath coming in short huffs. Celestia flicked her mane. “Ha, now thou art a complete horse. But what is this?” There was something on Luna’s rump. Something sharp and gleaming white.
Celestia squinted and leaned in. There on the trembling skin of Luna’s flank, in the center of her inky birthmark, was a tiny white crescent moon.
“Thy, thy cutie mark? That’s unheard of! Thou hast but a few seasons! Thou art too young.”
Luna’s nostrils flared and shrank, drawing in the dust. Centipedes and long-legged spiders picked their way through her tousled blue mane.
The pathetic nitwit had tried magic to open the door, and had only succeeded in calling her disgusting friends. “Get up, now,” said Celestia. “Let us return to the great hall. Mother and father shall be returning momentarily, and thy mane is horrid. They shall scold us for not keeping thee tidy during our first foalsitting.”
Still no reply. Celestia prodded her with her hooftip. “We said get up! Art thou deaf as well as dumb?”
Why won’t her flank stop twitching? Why won’t she obey? “Listen! Why don’t you listen, thou simpleton? Thou idiot, thou … nit!” Celestia stooped her head and nipped Luna’s foreleg. The little princess remained silent.
“More, is it?” Celestia squeezed into the chamber and bit hard, feeling the slender bones grind between her teeth.
Luna’s staring eye shifted, a slight movement and nothing else.
“Wilt thou not listen? Get up! Please? Luna, answer now! We are leaving!” She pulled her sister out of the crevice with her magic. Something fell from beneath the filly's sagging wing, clinking as she rose out of the dust. The mantle clock.
Celestia stopped. The glass of the clock had shattered, and its delicate hands were bent into its paper face.
An excuse. A story, a distraction. Why is Luna so dirty? She’d gotten outside, of course, had a bout of rolling in the gardens, laughed herself silly the whole time. And the mantle clock? The sweet little nipper’d had a magic fit and hurled it into the lake, a complete accident, no sense looking for it now …
There was a bump and a musical voice, far away, back the way they had come. Mother had returned.
Father will be furious.
Celestia turned and ran, calling out into the darkness ahead of her, her sister hanging in the golden aura of her magic. “Mother? Mother! There is something wrong with Luna.”
***
The gray walls streaked past as she galloped through the maze, turning the musky gloom aside with a beam of bright light. Can they hear our hoofbeats? They will be there, waiting at the end. What then of stories of frolicking in the flowers? And what of Luna’s listless state?
“Wake from thy stupor! Luna! Answer us! Much is at stake.” A quick glance back was all she could afford. There was no reply, no sign of awareness.
She could not remember the last time she had galloped. Her chest burned from the strain, and the pounding of her hooves jarred her bones. Even her searchlight spell was becoming a burden, forced as she was to carry the dead weight of her sister.
And then she was back in the castle, the heavy purple tapestry tented over her crown and horn. Luna hovered behind her, still out of sight.
Celestia turned left, then right, letting the tapestry fall from her head like a cloak’s hood. A voice boomed and rumbled from the direction of the dining hall.
“Luna? Celestia? Where are our daughters? Where dost thou play?”
Father. He must have returned with mother from the work pits of Canterlot’s foundations!
The King had not been home since the Crystal Caverns had been discovered beneath the unfinished walls of the city. The royal excavators spoke rumors, that negotiations with the tribe of unicorns living within the caves were faltering, and that violence had been threatened by both sides. The sages were divided, in constant debate of grave things, of the common good and necessity.
Celestia eased out into the passage, chancing a peek into the dining hall. There he stood, the King, the black ragged edges of his form raking the walls and ceiling of the room. His great head was stooped low as he searched the legs of the table.
“Celestia? Luna? Where art thou?” Mother was there with him, out of sight.
His temper is short, and his mercy all but spent. He will punish us, even his eldest daughter. If we can slip outside, mayhap we can …
Luna had floated through the tapestry. It slid from her back and slapped against the wall.
The King raised his head, his ice blue eyes already enraged beneath the dark flames of his crown.
We are doomed. He hath caught us in the very act. We are doomed …
In an instant the passage became a gray dreamworld, the wood and stone seeming to shift in a slow, cold current. “What,” he roared, shaking the stones in their mortar seams, “hast thou seen?”
Celestia could only bow, and look to the floor. “It … it was passing dark, sire. We saw but little …”
“Spare thy deceit!” the King shouted again, rearing and slamming his massive hooves down. A frigid wave surged through the spectral haze, suffocating all thought and will. “Come thou hither, without delay! Where is Luna? We sense some ill hath befallen her.”
Celestia trudged forward against the silent flood, inventing even as she spoke. “She is here, but in a swoon. She wished to play hide and seek, and bade us cover our eyes. When we opened them she was gone.” She dared a look upward. All she could see was the face of the King.
Yet in his face there was no disbelief. She reached the dining hall and bowed at his hooves, setting Luna down before him.
“Her mark! It hath appeared!” It was rare to hear surprise in father’s voice. He sat back, studying Luna’s still trembling flank. The shadows shrank a little, and the room regained some of its substance.
Mother stepped from behind him, a fiery dawn breaking through the fog of a winter’s night. “What doth this omen portend? She was parted from her wet nurse but last year.” She bent close to Luna, prodding her gently with her nose. She began to lick the dust from the filly’s coat.
“Thou art terrified, child. Be at peace.” She nuzzled Luna’s cheek once, twice, a third time. The trembling stopped, and her breathing evened to a gentle sigh.
The big green eyes rolled left and right, finally to focus on her mother’s flowing orange mane. “Mama?”
Celestia stood, her gaze fixed on Luna. Now is our chance.
“When we could not find her here, we looked to the next place a child would hide - behind the tapestries. We knew not of the secrets they conceal. We searched the dark ways until we found her in … an odd place, with iron bracelets and a heavy door. She was trapped inside! Sire, what is that place? We have not seen its like before.”
The King’s voice dropped to a low murmur. “It is a place where the truth is told.”
The meaning of the words was not lost on Celestia. Yet she did not cringe, and kept her face calm as she had seen mother do when dealing with dragons.
The King continued. “How didst thou know she was there? And our silver-wrought clock that of late adorned our mantle, given as tribute by the earth ponies - where is it?”
“A moonstone she had dropped was lying in the dust outside the door.” Celestia said as she gathered the stones and set them spinning in the space between them. “And the clock? She … she stole it and brought it there, perhaps to keep as in a vault.”
The King’s mane rose up, lifted by his rage. Sections bulged and broke free, seeking out the room’s corners and joining with the many shadows. The full weight of his anger now bore down on Luna, who had been watching Celestia with wide, frightened eyes.
Luna hid her face. “We are a bad pony. Send us away. We deserved it. Send us away.”
Celestia stepped around her sister and took her place with mother, who was sitting downtrodden. None defied the King in his wrath.
“Give them here, favored Celestia, ever young,” he spoke softly.
Ever young, never to fade. Who can deny our sire the King? Celestia cast the stones forward, relinquishing control.
“Luna! Did we not command thee to obey thy sister whilst we were away, seeing to the raising of mighty Canterlot?”
Still covering her face, Luna pushed herself away, keeping as low as she could.
The writhing swaths of darkness slid toward the retreating filly, lifting her into the air. “Thy nature is now clear to us,” the King bellowed, “thy mark, revealed! To Celestia’s brilliant sun thou art a dead distant rock, attending not even her, but the needy Earth that hungers for her light. So shalt thou be a secret, a rumor that haunts her subjects’ sleep, unknown in the open day. And it shall be thy fate to heave up thy worthless stone each night, to the joy of none. It is decided.” He dropped her headfirst to the floor.
Luna hugged herself and nodded. “Send us away. We are a bad pony. Put us in the dark.”
Her tearful words only goaded the King. “And the treasures that we bestowed we shall grind into dust before thy treasonous muzzle, as we would grind thy bones wert thou not our own issue. Luna, look at us now.”
“Put us away. Put us away,” Luna half-spoke, half-sang to the floor stones.
The King stomped his hoof, shaking the plates and glasses the servants had set for the royal family’s dinner. “Enough! We commanded thee to look at us! Obey!”
Celestia turned away, remembering the fuzzy hairs of her sister’s foreleg pressed between her teeth. Luna had backed to one of the corners into a pool of the converging shadows, watching them all with one wide eye, whispering to herself.
“Thy friend, the gardener’s son with whom thou watchest the golden carp in the gazing pond, he shall be your whipping colt. His oats this week shall go to the pigs, and his muzzle scourged raw before thee.” Down came the massive hoof again, shattering the first moonstone. Celestia flinched.
“Thou shalt be confined,” the ceiling shook as another moonstone crunched under his stamping iron shoe, “to thy bedchamber during the day, if thou likest so the darkness,” more crystalline shards cracked and shot out across the floor, “until we see fit to let thee roam again as thou wilt. And never,” a third stone exploded under his weight, “never again shalt thou join us at the Summertide Races.”
He shouted and scolded, dropping the moonstones one by one and crushing them as he had promised. He did not stop until all of them were broken.
When he was done, he swept the dust at Luna with a tendril of his midnight mane. “Now get thee out of our sight.”
Luna crawled around the corner of the door and galloped away, her dirty blue forelocks draped over her face. Celestia watched her disappear down the hallway.
She looked to her mother, who was glaring at the King with narrowed eyes. Celestia bowed in the uncomfortable silence. “Truly sire, thou art strong and just. May we be excused?”
The King shook his head, frowning. “Rest Celestia, day-star, daughter true and faithful. Thou hast done a good deed: thy dull-witted sister needs correction. Discipline. When it is thy turn to reign, do not fear to dispense punishment, even to her. This is wisdom; remember it.”
“Thank you, sire. We shall remember. Good night, mother.” She turned and left for her quarters, glittering moonstone dust grinding under her shoes.
***
Celestia bade her bedchamber guards a quiet watch, stepped out of her jeweled shoes, and slipped under the pressed silk covers of her bed. Luna had not come and lingered at her side as was her habit, chattering on about fish and fireflies and the stream that washes over the land at night and leaves the dew on the grass. Celestia nestled into her pillow. Thank heavens, spared her silly nonsense for once, and what a show father put on! And she deserves it, every bit, little bug … little … what was that word? nit … a nit is a louse … little …
And then she dreamed, of polished golden crowns and soaring white towers, of servants and courtesans and builders crowded around a pit of giant crystals, scratching their heads and arguing, of father listening and deciding. There was darkness in the pit, pockets of shadow among the perfect tables and facets shining double sunlight back up out of the depths. Endless corridors between the gems. Endless caves in which to hide what needed to be hidden, dust and gloom and stench of prisoners, hopeless cells of dust, dripping walls, rotten hay, tired gray forms trudging through the …
And there is an emerald, as long as our horn! Veins of gold, nuggets of silver! Our entire treasury is already here …
Dust. There was one form, leaning against the walls as it wandered in the utter darkness, nodding and whispering to itself. Luna.
The commoners shall be none the wiser, paying taxes as they ought, good little folk. All the wealth, all the laws, all the magic, all the beauty, all the people’s love shall belong to …
Down amidst the entombing stones Luna was whispering, singing, “Back we go, shut the door. Shut the door, where we belong. Where we belong, no one can see …” She stopped and turned, her eyes unblinking, her sea-green irises small as pinpricks.
Celestia awoke, crying out and tearing at her tongue where she felt little tickling hairs. She threw her coverlets up off of her wings and sat up. The room was still and quiet, save for the tiny coughing of her bedside candle.
I bit her. I bit her. “Lu-Luna?” she called too softly for any pony to hear. There was no answer.
She worked at untangling her polished hooves from her covers, trying not to shiver in the cold castle gloom. Of course no pony answers, it was a dream. But truly?
She stared at the only light, the candle flame flattening and bobbing, sharpening again. She could still smell the damp, crumbling stone of the labyrinth, still feel the cold drip of the low earthen ceiling. She could see Luna’s eyes, her soft, thin brows raised high in terror.
These are memories, not the remnants of dreams. She is there … she is there alone and looking for…
Celestia kicked the last of her covers away and leapt out of bed. The candle went out, blown by the air her mane and tail had stirred. She stopped, caught in the sudden darkness, her four hooves planted on the hoof-worn carpet she knew but could no longer see.
The poor child doesn’t understand.
The temper of the world switched, and for a moment revealed something of its soul. Celestia was not prepared for what it showed her. The darkness at once did not seem so dark, and the castle, the hills and even Canterlot seemed small. Her eternal life, her royal name, her high station - what was it worth? There was a new light in the room: the symbols on her flanks were burning, glowing bright gold.
She sank to her knees and wept. Celestia the Wise. Celestia the Ever Young. She looked up into the aura of her own golden light, the light she had never shared.
“Luna,” she whispered, “Sister beloved, if you fall into despair, I have no mark.”
She stood and pulled at the door with her magic. The guards were dozing, leaning on their spears. They always slept after the midnight hour. They knew no enemy had ever dared assault the Father King and Mother Queen of Equestria in their enchanted fortress home. Celestia slipped between them, her light hoofsteps as silent as wing feathers falling.
The torches burned low in their sculpted sconces, tarnishing the bronze-work. Celestia ducked into an alcove and watched the guards’ shadows. Soon Luna would find what she was searching for, or worse. There wasn’t much time to think of a plan. Two more guards stood where the hallway met the main corridor; from there it was a short trot to the concealing tapestry.
There was no magic of force she could use to pass them, she considered. Father would punish them severely at the sight of their broken spears and armor. There was no way to distract them. The only choices were to draw them past where she was hiding or send them where she wanted to go.
If only invisibility were within my power, and even then, they are so close together. Luna is going deeper every moment, the poor creature, the poor little …
Celestia stifled a cry with her hoof and crept out of the alcove. When she was a few paces behind the guards, she cast the only spell she could think of that would help her rescue her sister.
The guards stared straight ahead into the unlit corridor, nudging each other with the butts of their weapons when they began to nod off. They had seen many battles, and subdued many foes. What they did not see this night was the tiny black louse crawling past them along the seams of the wall stones. And when long white wings unfurled in the darkness of the passage they warded, they did not see whom they bore.
Celestia flew to the secret cleft in the wall and tore the tapestry aside. There were fresh hoofprints in the dust.
“No! Oh stars, Luna!” It had not been a dream.
She ignited the tip of her horn with her light and galloped in, letting the thick dust muffle her hoofbeats. The trail of prints hugged the wall to the right, going nowhere and doubling on itself, telling of tired, aimless wandering. Left and right, looping and winding Celestia followed, calling out and sifting through the echoes for a voice that wasn’t hers.
Then it came, quiet mumbling ahead and to her left.
“… moon came up, put us in the dark …
“Luna! Luna! Sister!” Celestia jumped forward and ran again, probing with her bright searchlight beam. The hoofprints were freshest here, a single set leading in the direction of the voice.
She turned a final corner and stopped. There was Luna, gray on black in the dripping tunnel. Her head was down, and her mane and tail were sagging with mud. Her shoulder scraped the wall as she trudged with slow, unsteady steps.
She was still talking to the barren floor. “Wavy Grass shall have no supper. Wavy Grass shall take our medicine. We are a bad pony …”
Celestia sprinted to close the gap between them. She gripped Luna’s thin shoulders between her hooves, then her cold face.
“Oh sister, where are you going? Please, please listen! Please talk to me? I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I … I took everything, and I hurt you. Please talk to me.”
Luna shook her head, still gazing at the floor. She slipped from Celestia’s grasp and kept walking. “We displeased Celes-cha, shut us in. We displeased papa sire, shut us in. Our moonstones all are sand, shut us in.”
Celestia stepped forward and pulled her sister’s head in to rest against her white chest. With one hoof she brushed aside the child’s hair until she could see the dark little face. “Please, Luna, I’m here. I will not let you fall into despair! I will raise the sun for you!”
“Celes … Celestia?” Luna looked up, recognition in her sea-green eyes at last. Her tears broke free as she spoke. “The moon came up, and it’s not going away …”