//------------------------------//
// 02 - Illumination 
// Story: Alicorn Origins: Legends of Disharmony 
// by lunabrony 
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	Luna stomped her hoof. "It's not fair," she said as she always did. She and Celestia had aspirations to put Discord in his place, to defeat him and bring order once more to the world. Subsequently, most of these announcements, by other ponies at least, were only met with laughter and chalked up to the musings of foolish children. Many adults had tried, all had failed. Most had been left unharmed, sent home in defeat. A few who had gotten closer than others simply vanished, nopony knew what happened to them. It was unlikely they would ever be seen again. 
"I want to see night and day." Luna declared, and when she declared something, you surely knew she'd do something about it. "And not just for a few minutes, I want a cycle, like in the old stories!"
The remembrance story was only about the night and day, and what they contained. Their mother didn't tell the story of how the weather had been broken, and the sun and moon prevented from returning. All ponies knew enough of that story. Discord, who had always existed as far as anyone could tell, had simply started acting out with still greater amounts of chaos; not content with the state of the world. This had grown until the present day. He was a force out of control, and nopony could stop him. 
"A bit of order, just to have dependable crops... just for that sake alone. So we can eat." Their father Titan nodded, content with his thoughts. "Something planted with your own hooves, that would come back to you." Celestia, on the other hoof, was less serious and a bit dreamy.			  
"The sun," she simply said, smiling contently. "It has to be real." Both Luna and Celestia had a strange mark on their flank. Neither of their parents had. Neither had anypony in the village. Nopony knew what it meant. Aurora nuzzled Luna, and the young filly whickered with delight. 
"You can always see the moon in your dreams. Discord didn't take those away from us, and I don't think he can." 
Titan grumbled. "Humph, I think he'd try, or replace our dreams with something else. Most likely nightmares we can't wake up from. He has a perverse sense of humor." At this, Celestia's ears pinned back, and Luna looked as if she was about to cry. Aurora glared at him 
"Not now. Titan, you're scaring Luna."
Dreams. Luna had very unusual dreams, often containing images of ponies she personally knew. Her mother, her father, Celestia. On several occasions subjects which she had dreamed had proven to be true upon her awakening, as if she'd seen the events transpire first hand. But she kept these things to herself, the only one she told was Celestia. She was afraid, why could she see these things and nopony else could? She had tried many times to control it, and yet it happened regardless. As for her mothers comment, she glared, and immediately wiped the moisture from her eyes with a front leg. "I am not scared!" She protested.
Aurora pressed her nose to Luna's cheek. "Of course you're not Luna, you and your sister are the bravest little fillies." Celestia took a bit of offense from being called a filly, and made a faux and overlydramatic humph. 
"We're the bravest mares in the whole wide little world." Celestia smiled proudly. Titan looked outside and levitated a rock into the two openings dimming the hidey hole. Celestia made only a few protests about just being given a few more minutes. They had to sleep when things looked quiet and stable enough to allow it. Aurora tucked her daughter into the soft beddings they had managed to make over the days.If you could even call them that. In the dark Luna felt her mother nuzzle the side of her cheek. 
"Little Luna, do you know why I'm not afraid for you?" She whispered so silently Luna could barely hear her voice. "Because I know you'll see the moon one day, just as it is. And when you do I hope you'll remember it and tell the world about it. A little hope like that can help any pony."
Luna felt her chest swell with pride. She had nothing but love for her parents and sister, overwhelming confidence and affection. "Of course I am!" She whispered back. "I'm gonna see the moon, and if that's not enough, maybe I'll go there someday too!" She announced in that full-of-spirit voice that children often had, and nopony could tell her she was wrong.
Their parents settled, not far from where Luna slept. Their body heat and magical auras nearby. She heard their breathing slow down eventually, and a silence settle over the hiding hole. Discord's mad energies hadn't penetrated the darkness a little cavern could make. His reach wasn't endless. Eventually she heard a whisper inside her head from Celestia. `	"We need to go back to the ruins, if we can figure out how to do this spell we can protect the village from at least flooding... I need your help." A rare admission. "Can you cast illusions of us, so mom and dad won't go looking for us? Then we'll have a good while to go over the spell again." Celestia didn't admit needing Luna's help in deciphering the complex and often broken spellwork runes laced into the walls.
Luna was always up for an adventure, especially one with her sister. Her horn glowed briefly, an illusion spell wasn't difficult. It just made one object appear to be somewhere it wasn't. "Already done." She said. "Let's get back there before mom and dad wake up or we'll never hear the end of it. If we get caught, I'll just say it was my idea."
"What is it?" Celestia asked, gazing upon her younger sister.
Luna had gone quiet, and her own focus was on the grounds outside the castle window. "I don't like this part," Luna admitted. "If I had known, if we had known, if we hadn't been so stupid..."
Celestia's voice softened. "We couldn't have known what was coming, or even what he was capable of. I'm here for you, Luna. Let us get through this tale together, then we shan't speak of it again. Our story will be preserved."
The Princess of the Night wiped her eyes, nodding in agreement. She hated Discord for what he had done, and even now, with him being reformed, she refused to do business with him unless it was absolutely necessary.
"Alright."
"They feel warm," Celestia said in a barely audible voice, her hoof prodding the faux image of her, going straight through the ethereal image. Specialization came with its advantages. They snuck out quietly into the perpetual never-night-nor-day. The ruins were a good distance away. While they were learning a lot on their own by sheer trial and error, and by figuring out the deeper mechanics of what they had been taught, only the ruins really gave indications of how complex and ambitious arcanery was to be done. "Teleport race you there?" Celestia smiled. A barely learned skill, already time to compete in it? She concentrated sharply, her horn flashing with ancient powers and with a wink she appeared a hundred feet ahead, blew a raspberry at Luna and started teleporting again.
Ever the child, Luna gasped in horror. "That's not fair! I wasn't ready!" She protested, and followed suit, overworking her horn in order to catch up. A good five feet behind, she called. "I challenge! You didn't even say Go!"
Celestia laughed "Alright then, go!" And she flashed ahead. It was a complex game. Teleporting required knowing where you were going in order to call up the spell in proper sequence to take you there and no where else. They were doing it on the fly, Celestia sticking to a certain length where the spell was easier to put together in the head, though it took longer. Luna's path zigzagged a bit, certain directions were easier than others. They arrived at the ruins completely exhausted, their horns feeling drained, and sweat pouring down their coats. It had only taken them a few moments. Celestia was off immediately, heading in a beeline for a particular stretch of the wall. It was hard to tell what it had been originally, some wildly overgrown cylinders stretched upwards. With the effort of a little magic Luna and Celestia had scraped away murals depicting castles floating in the sky. It seemed an obscene use of magic which reminded too much of Discord's own. They'd searched in vain for murals of the sun or moon, though they found one where the background sky did have a circle, but it wasn't clear whether it was day or night in the picture. The spellwork written into the stone was hard to follow, long interwoven segments of runes following a grammatical rule set which seemed to be endlessly complex. Whenever they had uncovered a new paradigm of principles, and the spells were starting to make sense, they started to encounter new exceptions. Celestia had originally called the art of complex spells which weren't based on 'feel' The Art, the little they knew of The Art was already improving the meager spells they were discovering for themselves. Unfortunately, the walls didn't contain instructions, or lessons. They contained fully grown spells meant for specific duties. Shielding obviously. One wall was free of plant growth, so some of the still active runes on that wall must be a spell preventing moss from growing on the stone. However picking out that spell, was like picking out a single birds song out of a flock of a hundred.
Luna had long had a passion for the nighttime, she'd been drawn to the images of the moon and stars, while her sister, as if by complete opposite, was enthralled by the sun. Luna separated from sister with a warning of "Stay close." She'd warned, only going to the other side of the ruin to focus her study on ruins nearby. It would take less time than if they both became stuck on the same set of inscriptions. She was quiet in her own studies for about an hour, before teleporting right next to Celestia in the middle of an equally stubborn rune. "Boo!" She announced, as mischievous as ever. Celestia was fully engrossed in studying, and it seemed a silly way to break the silence.
Celestia who was usually up for a prank, stood in unbroken concentration reading the lines. Scanning one row then another, her lips moving silently to thoughts and spell pronunciations in her head. Her eyes didn't as much as blink. Then she became silent, closing her eyes. A little orb appeared on the tip of her horn, she connected it with the runework. And a single rune in the middle of the complex spellwork, which seemed offside and insignificant, caught fire. A fire that spread outwards, racing through the stone work. Celestia's eyes widened, in hope, in utter expectant hope. The spreading accelerated, and with the sound of crackling thunder the wall sprang to life, a blue bubble expanded rapidly and engulfing the two unicorns. When they could see again and the sound had died down, they saw the section of wall Celestia had worked on, free of all plants, its rune work glowing quietly with the blue light of Celestia's magic. They were also standing in the center of a sphere. Celestia stomped the ground with her hoof.
"It works!" She shouted triumphantly. A protective spell. One that could support itself independently.
Luna was equally excited, and bounced in circles around her sister. "It works! It works! It works! It works!" Then she composed herself, and quickly settled down. "I mean... it works." She said calmly, as if the outburst had never happened. "I always knew you could do it, Celly."
"Thanks, I knew I could do it as well, I just wasn't sure!" She beamed proudly, letting herself flomp down on her back. "They can be safe now, we don't have to move the village so often. It won't overgrow now, it won't get flooded as easily." It was hard to tell exactly how long the wall had lasted before its original charge had gone out. Things grew rapidly and unpredictably. All Luna and Celestia knew was that as far as they had been able to find, the only ruins left standing had magical protection. And that protection had kept some of the ruins alive through ever weakening spells, that had withstood the chaotic nature of the world they now lived in. Suddenly she was on her legs again "Wanna reactivate the rest of the ruin with me? I'll teach you the spell, we almost got it right, we just have to patch broken areas and start it the right way, that's all we missed!" Her sister was rarely demonstrating this much excitement. "As long as we don't get caught, I think we really have a chance!"
"Of course I do." Luna said with excitement, and was on her hooves almost instantly. "Do you think we'll be able to grow things again?" She asked. "Not the artificial stuff that we have now, but real, living things like fruits and vegetables?"
The possibilities were endless. The spell was indeed very complex, but now they had a correctly restored example, so it was a matter of running back and forth between this section of the wall and filling out the gaps and drawing in the correct runes. Celestia carefully instructed Luna how to activate the starting rune. And from then on... it was a competitive race again as they restored networks of runes, setting the whole ruin brimming with otherwordly light, the spheres of protection growing merging together. Many spells couldn't be restored, especially the ones that had made this particular castle float in the sky. They both grew in ecstacy as they stood on one section of all and looked across the glowing sight. 
Celestia was overflowing with excitement. "Our families could live here! We could start anew and... Luna we could start to really study magic!" They were both exhausted, not a bad days work done. 
And that's when a voice appeared behind them. The voice sounded faux, as if whatever it said was just said for fun, only this time it sounded quite offended. 
"Oh, and here I thought you were happy with where you lived..." Turning around they both saw a creature, that seemed an ensemble of many others. Two different horns, a long slender furry body ending in a scaled tail, no limb from the same creature. They could sense his power, power that, at the moment, was directed at the two of them. "You could have lived there all your lives, and instead you repair an old dung heap, my what your parents must be thinking of you."
Luna felt her body fill with fear, although both were smart enough not to do anything overwhelmingly stupid, Luna stood in front of Celestia, her mother had always told her to make sure to protect her older sibling, although she was sure her father had told Celestia the same thing. 
"Speaking of old dung heaps..." She sent muttered the joke just weak enough for Celestia to pick up on.
They weren't strong, they'd had a teleport race all the way out to the ruins and then run around wildly pouring in magic into the protective spells.
"Don't worry, sister, he's on the other side of the barrier, he can't get us!" Celestia replied in kind. And indeed he was, standing aloof outside the wall. He poked the barrier with a finger, and electric light filled his body while he screamed out in sudden shock. 		
"Whaaaarrrghh!" The cry of pain turned into laughter and the fireworks stopped. As if it was nothing in the world he stepped through as their spell works died across the ruins. "Oh that was a good one, little fillies. I thought good humor was hard to come by now-a-days. So I'm going to reward you. If things are so easy at home that you feel you can just run away… perhaps I should up the difficulty. Don't worry. It's not you I want." And with that he kicked off from the ground and flew towards their village at incomprehensible speeds.
"No..." Celestia whimpered and teleported away towards the village. Luna barely had enough time to process all of this before breaking into a run after her sister.