AN: Don't own MLP or Dwarf Fortress.
Chapter 2: Something is Wrong Here
Luna woke up screaming.
It was that damned dream again.
Not only was it unsettling, it was embarrassing—the Dreaming was part of her realm for crying out loud!
Still, it was oddly quiet.
Luna reached out with her senses. Ah, there they were; first the guards at her door, some servants scurrying around doing early morning chores. The silencing spell had done its job and kept her from disturbing them—oh, that was why it was so quiet. All her little ponies were fine. She could now even feel her sister stirring in the room down the hallway. She smiled as she imagined her sister kicking her blankets around like a filly, which she always did. She had probably kicked them clear off the bed again, which would explain her muddled and grumpy aura.
She stretched her lanky body out languidly. It was time to go visit Celly.
The guards at her door, Star Shine and Spark Sword, smiled at her before saluting. They weren't the most disciplined of the royal guard, but that was precisely why she had chosen them for her personal guard. It was nice to have ponies that didn't stand on formality all the time around her. She returned the salute and smile, and trotted quickly to the end of the hallway to visit her sister.
The guards at Celestia's door didn't so much as blink at first, but as she got within a wingspread of them they snapped off picture perfect salutes, and Luna paused to inspect them. They stood stock still, and she was struck by a sudden immature urge to make faces at them. She gave them a smile, and finally returned the salute, freeing them to return to their original position. Their pride at passing her cursory inspection was almost palpable. Her little ponies were so cute when they were being serious!
And speaking of cute... Luna opened the door to find her sister just like she had expected, blankets thrown askew on the floor, with her rear legs twitching like a sleeping puppy. She grabbed the blankets and placed them atop her sister. She stopped to survey her hoofwork, and was pleased by everything she saw except for one thing. Her sister's formerly serene features had begun to twist in fear and anxiety.
Well, even if she was having issues controlling her own dreams at the moment, she could at least help her sister. it was foals play for her to reach out into the Dreaming and calm the roiling currents that her sister was caught up in.
Or at least it should have been.
Her efforts seemed to do nothing but enrage the roiling ethereal sea, and Celestia began to thrash about on the bed.
It was almost as if—
Celestia shot up out of the bed, eyes wide and horn glowing.
With a single blast, Luna was blown off her feet and through the doors. Celestia's guards went flying and landed crumpled against either side of the hallway.
Celestia approached, Sunfire blazing in her eyes, mane billowing out behind her, and her horn glowing brighter than ever before.
“You won't take her from me forever, bitch! You will burn when I'm through with you! When all is through, I will cast you into the Abyss myself. You will burn. You will BURN!” Celestia screamed, pressing Luna even harder into the wall and crushing the breath out of her.
Her mane lost all semblance of it's former prismaticism at this point. Flickering with heat and light, it became Sunfire, and random objects in the room began to shudder and incinerate.
At this point Star Shine and Spark Sword burst onto the scene, placing themselves squarely between the Princesses. At the sight of them, Celestia halted her advance, horror dawning in her eyes as she realized what she had done.
In an instant, she released her hold on the moon princess, took a couple of steps back, and vanished in a flash of light.
Luna fell to the ground, gasping for air. Star Shine and Spark Sword hovered around Luna, as if expecting a mad Celestia to pop out of thin air to attack the princess of the night.
As her lungs painfully reinflated, Luna watched her two personal guards buzzing worriedly around her, she started to laugh.
“This has not been my morning,” she giggled. The giggles grew in volume to full on laughter, and suddenly she was no longer laughing but sobbing, curling up on the floor and weeping.
Two pairs of wings and hooves encircled her. It was Star Shine and Spark Sword again. Two of her favorite little ponies. Her little ponies.
She shot to her feet, purging the despair. She was a Princess. She was the God-Empress of the Night. And she knew that their had been four guards on duty that day in the Royal Hallway. Sure enough, there were Celestia's guards, crumpled on the floor.
She turned to her guards.
“Go to the Medical wing. I will meet you there.”
A silver flash filled the hall, and Princess Luna and Celestia's two incapacitated guards disappeared.
~~~
Princess Luna paced back and forth on the balcony. Three minutes to sunrise.
She was coming. She had to be!
Two minutes to sunrise.
Celly always had liked surprises. She had just chosen a spectacularly inappropriate time for one.
One minute to sunrise.
After her sister rose the sun, she was going to ban cloud cake from the castle for the rest of the year.
Thirty seconds.
Forget year, she was going to ban cloud cake for the next century!
Fifteen seconds.
Come on, Celly. Please come.
Five, four, three, two, one.
It was still night. For the third time in a millennium, sunrise was late in Equestria.
A few early risers had begun to nervously mill about on the ground beneath the balcony, glancing between the clock, the balcony, and the moon that was still hanging on the edge of the horizon. A few started to look at Luna fearfully.
After about five minutes of this, Luna could take it no longer.
She leaped into the air wings curved in a near perfect circle, and grabbed the sun from its hiding place.
The sun was not pleased with this, and reams of Sunfire coursed down the link, setting Luna on fire. Bits of her coat burst into flames, the air filling with the smell of burning flesh and hair.
She finally subdued the sun, forcing it to travel its well worn path once more.
Falling more than gliding to the ground, she walked unsteadily to the peak of the balcony.
“My little ponies, my sister is feeling poorly. She is resting, and we will return to our normal roles soon.”
Luna knew that she should grab the solar ley line and force it to show where her sister was. But even now, with muscles and sinew charred by Sunfire, she couldn't bring herself to do it
It wasn't rational, it made no sense, but she was afraid.
And somewhere deep inside she knew that she was right to be.